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In an economic drought, good customer service is digging for water. You have to work at it and be smart about it, but it doesn’t have to be difficult. Here are a few things you can do right now to improve your customer service.

1. Listen to your customers
Listen to their complaints. Listen to their problems and their solutions. Listen to their successes and failures, their goals and plans, hopes and dreams; their boring and crazy stories. But don’t just be passive. Ask your customers to talk!

These are the people you need, and who need you. They are the lifeblood of your business, and they are your community. Get to know them, build relationships. Build trust. It starts with listening. Share their excitement, but be quick to root out and squash the causes of their frustrations.

2. Listen to your colleagues
The employee is every bit as important as the customer. An employee can make or break a sale; can gain the trust and loyalty of a customer, or lose it forever.

Listening does not just mean hearing sounds; it’s not passive. It means comprehending, it means dialogue. It means suppressing the ego, looking for the causes of problems, and solving them.

If you are a business owner, your staff represents YOU to your customers, but they also represent your customers to you. Better pay attention. If you work for someone, listen to your co-workers in the same way. This builds trust and shapes a cohesive unit, leading to better customer service.

3. Be open to change
Listening is good, because it allows excitement to be shared and also the burden of frustrations. But understanding the things you hear is one thing – acting on them is another. What created the excitement? Can we try to create more of this? What caused the frustration? How can we avoid more of this?

Change is hard. But it happens with or without you. Your customers and employees, both, will expect poor situations to be fixed. If it doesn’t happen they will no longer be yours.

4. Follow through
Do what you say you’re going to do. I absolutely hate it when people don’t follow through, all the more so because I’ve failed in this area so many times. But it’s as critical as it is fundamental; if you say you will provide a service, then do so. If you say “we provide quality customer service,” or “service you can depend on,” well dammit you’d better deliver.

The corollary to this, of course, is don’t tell me you’re going to do something if you don’t know for sure if you can. A little open communication goes a long way.

5. Strive for consistency
Say you go to a restaurant where you absolutely love the food, but are disappointed by poor quality. How likely are you to return? How likely are you to say to others, “yeah, this place is going downhill”?

Maintaining consistent quality of product or service is difficult. There are many variables, but remember you’re not in this alone. Your customers will tell you if you’re slipping, and so will your employees. Take care of points 1 and 2, and you’ll stand a much better chance of staying on top of this one. But also remember consistency has to apply to all the above points.

Good customer service takes unceasing effort. Maybe that’s why so many businesses don’t have it, or don’t have it consistently. But does any of this stuff work? Is it worth the effort? Am I full of crap?

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Photo courtesy of Tonamel

5 Ways To Improve Your Customer Service is a post from: RSA Blog

Blogging is a waste of time?

Seriously, why bother? Isn’t this kind of a waste of time? It’s not like blogs really matter – it’s just throwaway content, after all. What really matters is the website.

False.

Look, the web is about two things: content and search. Content because that’s what you’ve come for, and search because that’s how you find the content. Nothing else matters.

In light of this, a blog can be the most important tool you employ for two reasons:

1. A blog is all about content. But you have to make that content matter. It needs to be quality content; relevant content. Guess who loves quality content? That’s right: your customers and the search engine they used to find you. This content is useful to them; it helps them make decisions, helps solve their problem. It gives them a reason and a method to engage you.

2. Blogs are inherently search-engine optimized. They make you much more findable, which can drive a lot of traffic to your website. But SEO needs to be strategic. You have to pay attention to your audience and the keywords they use to make this work well (no, using random keywords based on intuition is not optimization – that’s called blind guesswork; fumbling in the dark).

Your website is important, to be sure. It is the hub around which all your online activity orbits (and often the blog *is* the website). But a blog can be an “orbital” with one hell of a gravity well, attracting searchers to your content and your website,  so don’t write it off too quickly.

Alright, you’ve got my opinion on it. What do you think? Are blogs just a place to toss extra content that doesn’t matter? Why bother?

Why Blog? is a post from: RSA Blog

Whenever I sit down to go through ideas for blog posts, I inevitably think of a few that sound great, only to realize hey, we already wrote that one. A lot of the things we wrote about last year are still relevant even now – maybe more so.

Looking back through our logs, it’s no surprise to find some content was more popular than others. After all, we’re still experimenting to find the sort of thing you, our readers, find most useful.

To make sure you didn’t miss any of the good ones from last year, here’s a short list of our most viewed posts from 2009.

Why Good Customer Service Is So Important

5 Reasons Not to Cut Your Marketing Budget in a Recession

Elements of Internet Marketing

Going Nuts? Don’t Cut your Marketing

Should You Put Video On Your Website?

Understanding Web Design

14 Practical Uses For Social Media

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Photo courtesy of kevinzim

Stuff You Liked From 2009 is a post from: RSA Blog

Wishing you a year of joy & good marketing

With the dawn of a new year, there is a lot of buzz about marketing in 2010. The “blogsphere ” is flooded with questions like, “What will be the most effective marketing media in 2010,” “Will traditional media b ecome obsolete,” and “Where are advertisers going to spend in 2010.”

Among these marketing predictions are:

1. The rise of mobile marketing and mobile websites:

This will be a pretty big one and some are even saying that the impact of mobile marketing will surpass that of social media. Be sure to pay attention to how this develops in the coming months and years.

2. Relationship marketing and customer service:

This necessity continues to grow as social media gives EVERY customer a louder voice and influence. Remember that your customers are people too, and not just any people, but the kings and queens of your business.

3. Experimentation:

When it comes to new technologies, sometimes experimentation is the best way to see if they work for your marketing. This doesn’t mean (of course) to blindly pursue new media with no clear goal, intent, strategy and system of measurement. But, it certainly doesn’t hurt to try something new. If you don’t begin experimenting, you will be left behind.

4. Social media and SEO:

We can’t forget about the meat and potatoes of online marketing. Social media and SEO have advanced past the point of being mere buzz words. Don’t expect these two to disappear.

5. Promotions in both new AND traditional media:

Whether businesses are offering incentives to gain friends and followers in social networks, customer loyalty programs, coupons, sales or charitable contributions – promotions are sure to be another 2010 trend.

Despite all the growth and trends in execution, I am here to tell you: in this new year and decade, marketing has not changed (at least in concept).  Regardless of what media you resolve to use this year, or where you allocate that budget, the fundamental principles of good marketing remain the same.

Still, the rise of the Internet, online social technologies, and the mobile web has changed how marketers need to look at communication and the people they are communicating with. It has also added elements of complexity with more marketing media, niches and approaches that need to be understood.

As always, regardless of the platform:

• Define your market and the people you are trying to reach.
• Remember what need, want or interest your product fills.
• Address the people (as people, not mere consumers existing to give you their money) who have that want, need or interest and let them know you have the solution.
• Be useful to people, helping them to find what they’re looking for, whether they know that’s you yet or not.

Simple, right?

Okay, so maybe not that simple as we still cannot forget about research, strategy, creative, experience, message, placement, etc. And we cannot forget how all of these things are essential components to any effective marketing effort.

The point here is that whether online of offline, you’re still using the same marketing principles. No need to fear – 2010 is full of opportunities for businesses and marketers using any media.

It is important to remember what and why you are marketing in the first place (and what you ultimately want to accomplish). And don’t forget who you’re talking to.

What do you see in store for marketing this year? What are you most excited about?

Image Credit: Avatar/ΣΙΓΜΑ

2010 Marketing Predictions is a post from: RSA Blog

Within the search results you not only get a link to Google maps for directions, but a link to the coffee shop’s site. Upon entering their website you are automatically eligible for a mobile discount: a free latte, which is redeemable at the register by simply showing the mobile coupon code you will receive in a text message.

Does your website work for mobile?

Does this scenario seem a little crazy or far-fetched to you? Well, it is more realistic than you might think. In fact, it’s already happening.

Mobile Marketing Today

Mobile websites are not only used as a quick way to find information, but they have become yet another avenue for marketing campaigns.

Capturing the attention of multiple generations and target demographics, mobile marketing is an intricate and interesting venture that effectively ties into other marketing efforts.

Mobile marketing can be used to help establish brand awareness through many different outlets like mobile search banner ads and SMS advertising. Before you get too excited though, remember that mobile marketing is largely useless without a properly functioning mobile website.

Your Website, Mobile

Contrary to popular belief, websites built for standard web browsers do not display very well (if at all) on mobile devices. While standard websites can have multiple features, the main purpose behind a mobile site is a simple call-to-action.

Call-to-action features allow for users to accomplish something useful, such as finding the location of a restaurant, making a hotel reservation, or subscribing to text alerts or an e-newsletter. Whatever the action is, it should be easily accessible to users as soon they land on the site.

Whether the goal is getting more customers in the door, increasing online sales or reservations, a good mobile website will help make it happen. With a growing demand from mobile web users to have accessible and customizable mobile sites, business owners and marketers around the world are working to keep their customers happy both at their desk and on the go.

How does your website look on mobile devices?

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Photo courtesy of edans

Mobile Marketing and Your Website is a post from: RSA Blog

Tools without strategy: poorly built house; dilapidated, isolated. More of a shack, really. A bad marketing shack.

I’ve had the opportunity to speak at a few events about social media. I’ve also spoken to clients, prospects, colleagues, friends, family, and a few pets about social media. One of the most common questions asked of me, and that I see asked of others, is “how do you use social media for business?”

For these presentations, I usually begin by explaining what social media is conceptually, then move into how it can be integrated into the marketing effort – beginning with objectives and strategy. Almost unfailingly, however, I receive feedback to the effect of “I still don’t know how to *USE* this stuff.” I think I know what the problem is (clearly I need to fix my presentation, but that’s beside the point).

Tools without a plan

Imagine I walked up to you and asked, “How do I use a hammer?” How would you respond? You might grab a hammer, nail, and a piece of wood and show me the proper way to hold the tool and the nail, place the wood, and proper form for pounding the nail in. I’d say “thanks,” you’d say “jolly good, ol’ boy,” and we’d part company.

Now what? I can hammer nails with the best of them, but what does that mean? I can nail two pieces of wood together. Or three, or fifty. Can’t cut the wood – need to learn another tool. Oh, the wood needs to be measured? Another tool. Whoops, forgot to lay the foundation – that’s a whole other set of tools.

You get the idea. I know how to use a hammer, but I still can’t build a house – not one that deserves the name, anyway.

Technology without strategy

It’s the same with social media – Twitter, Facebook, Google, blogs, forums, etc. – these are just tools. I can show you how to use any of them, but they’re not going to do anything for your business unless you understand how they fit into the marketing mix, the PR effort, sales, customer service, production, and all other facets of your organization.

Because unlike a specialized tool like the hammer, “social media” as a concept can be utilized to further the efforts of almost any department in your business. But you won’t understand this simply by learning specific tools.

That’s why I always try to begin with the fundamentals – or the high-level perspective, depending on how you look at it: business objectives; the strategic plan. But this seems to make people zone out – they don’t want to hear it. They just want to dive into the tools. That enthusiasm is great, but it’s no use without a plan.

Stop.

It is definitely NOT hammer time. Put it down, back away, and no one gets hurt! Start at the beginning. Form your plan based on objectives. Then when you do get to the tools, you’ll be able to use them effectively, with purpose. Even better, when new tools and technologies come along, you’ll be much better prepared to jump in and use them effectively as well.

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Photo courtesy of foto3116

Social Media Tools Are Useless is a post from: RSA Blog

Twitter overload...

I was reluctant – VERY reluctant – to write this post. Do we really need another post about Twitter? I’ve run across some Twitter users (for biz) lately that tells me perhaps we do. After all, some people are just now signing up, and may not have read any of the twizillion “Twitter 101″ posts available.

So… here we are. How to set up and use Twitter for business.

1. Use your real name.
When you sign up your account, include your real name. It can be your username or not, but include it in the “name” field at the least.

If you don’t want people to know who you are, social media probably isn’t for you.

2. Fill out your bio.
In general, I don’t follow people who don’t have a bio, and I’m not the only one. Why? Because the only reason I would want to follow you is because of who you are. If I don’t know who you are, I’m far less likely to follow.

Beyond just telling other people who you are, the bio can also help explain why you’re on Twitter in the first place. Many people use Twitter for business, so they naturally include their occupation and position in the bio, along with interests pertaining to their field of work.

If you don’t want people to know what you do, go ahead and skip Twitter.

3. Fill in your location.
Some people are leery of this because of privacy issues. But consider: 1) if you’re using the internet, your location is already compromised, and 2) no one really cares where you are except that it somehow relates to themselves.

In other words, the fact that I am in Rapid City, South Dakota only matters to other people in this area, and can already be found out through other means (see: Google).

The advantage of posting your location is it will be much easier to network with locals, and associates you with your region in searches. So use your city and state (not GPS coordinates, you geeks – no one knows what those mean!)

If you don’t want people to know where you are, avoid the internet. And mobile devices. And electricity.

4. Don’t protect your tweets.
This is bad enough for personal use, but for a business? You might as well not bother with Twitter.

So many people will say “no one gives a crap what you think,” and maybe there’s some truth in that, if all you are posting is a useless stream of narcissistic minutiae. But I think people are more interested in each other than we’re willing to admit, provided what you have to say is relevant to others.

Tweets I can’t see are not relevant. Part of how I decide whether or not to follow someone is by looking at what they’ve been talking about. If I can’t see that, I’m just not going to bother.

If you hop on Twitter and protect your updates, it’s like walking into a mixer and standing in a corner whispering. Are you here to network, or what?

If you don’t want people to hear what you have to say, don’t bother with the internet at all.

5. The only thing that matters about your avatar is consistency.
People will tell you to post your real picture with a smiling face, and they’re not wrong. But if you can’t bring yourself to do that (I’m working on it), then at least make sure whatever you post as your profile picture is something you want to keep there for a while.

Your profile photo should reflect your company somehow, to keep things consistent. A variation of your logo is a good choice. Just try not to change it often.

When I scan my Twitter feed (at a certain point you will have to do this), I find myself stopping at specific tweets because of the person’s avatar. Either the picture stands out, or I’ve grown accustomed to paying attention to that person’s tweets. Either way, the avatar is what keeps me from overlooking that person.

The problem is these people may change their profile photo frequently. Now I don’t recognize them, and am more likely to overlook them when scanning the feed.

If you don’t want people to know what you look like… uh… you’re probably like me.

6. Use a custom background.
The default backgrounds make me sleepy. Change it to a solid color, if you have to, but PLEASE use something custom. You can Google search for pre-made backgrounds, too, but keep in mind the background should also fit your company or brand.

Change your background under Settings, in the Design tab.

If you use the default backgrounds, you’re boring. Or lazy.

7. Engage!
Now you’re set up so people know who you are, what you do, and where you are coming from. These are all good things when you’re networking, especially for business.

Twitter isn’t a role-playing game. Be real or begone, ye foul beast!

Use Twitter search to find others like you or people having conversations about topics of interest to you. Find people to learn from. Find people to teach. Find people to laugh with, argue with, or people you can help or who can help you. Use TweetDeck, Seesmic or Hootsuite to streamline your efforts.

And have fun.

Seriously? Another “Twitter For Business” Post? is a post from: RSA Blog

Have you ever thought to yourself, ‘whoa, that has got to be one of the worst jobs’.  Maybe you were walking down the street and had a little pity on the poor ‘jo’ that had to spend his day analyzing smells emanating from the local locker room.  This summer (it’s over – boo, hiss) we started working on a series of commercials for Western Dakota Tech based on the creative notion – what kind of jobs would you just hate to be stuck in? Steve B. from WDT and the RSA team had a great time coming up with outlandish jobs. We landed on a few that really seemed desperate and began production. Our goal was to encourage anyone who might want to improve their life to consider taking online courses through WDT for business management and marketing. Ever had one of these jobs?

1)  Human Pinata – How fun is it to go to parties, hang from a tree, and meet the power of 5-year-olds with BATS?

2) Professional Kiss-up – Yes sir, you’re a genius! Ever notice someone following an executive around and wonder…’what do they do all day?’ Well, maybe they have to kiss-up all day long… oh joy!

3) The Shredder Guy – Initially inspired by “The Office” – we wanted to show an over-worked, under-paid person working in a small office doing his overwhelmingly mundane work. Naturally, an ‘office accident’ is likely to occur.

4) Assistant on a Leash – Don’t ya hate it when the boss never gets your name right but always expects you to know everything and be at their beckoning call?  Not the greatest gig, admit it.

Production went on and we had a blast yanking, smacking, shredding and blowing hot air all over the place.  Turns out that all of our fun paid off and the commercials received Platinum & Gold MarCom Awards.

• A Platinum Award for the television campaign promoting the online degree program. The ads tell stories about people in terrible jobs – just as a human piñata – who choose WDT to improve their lives.
• A Gold Award for the radio campaign promoting the online degree program. The radio ads tell stories similar to the TV ads.

The MarCom Awards competition received over 5,000 entries from all over the world. The winners ranged from Advertising agency to Fortune 500 companies.

WDT is showing a 20% improvement in their enrollment this year, and they’re bursting at the seams. We continued into the fall producing more emotional based commercials that show specific values WDT has to offer a range of students – hands-on training, affordability, and one-on-one attention from professors.

It’s been great working with WDT over that past several years and it gets better as we go.  Congratulations guys!

The Worst Job Gets National Awards is a post from: RSA Blog

Your website is the marketing hub

So unless you’re an online business, your brick-and-mortar store is the hub of your marketing efforts. Your website, then, should be the hub for your online marketing, and in turn, should point customers to your store.

If you sell products directly from your website, customers are already “at” your store. But even if you don’t have that e-commerce element, you’re still making a pitch of some sort to your web visitors, and trying to convince them to take an action.

Customers should be able to find all they need to know about you on your website. People make buying decisions in all kinds of places – many while sitting at home on a computer looking at a website. The website should be the hub, the focal point for all of your activity on the web: email, newsletters, blogs, social media, ads, articles, videos, etc. – all this online activity should somehow point back to your website, just as the website points to your physical store.

The website should also be tied to your offline marketing. If your website URL (http://www.yourdomain.com) is not on your business cards and other collateral, it should be. Every advertising campaign you do should involve the website. If you “fish where the fish are,” your website is critical, since most Americans – and most of the industrialized world – use the internet.

Takeaway point: your website is the most important part of your web presence. Write a newsletter, create a blog, engage in social media, but always remember your website is the hub, and the conduit from digital to brick-and-mortar.

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Photo courtesy of ndrwfgg

Your Website is a Marketing Hub is a post from: RSA Blog

Everyone has goals.

If you own, manage or work in a business, you’re a marketer. Marketing may not be your specialty – that is, you may not be the one calling the shots when it comes to marketing plans and decisions, but you are still an integral part of that activity. You are a marketer, like it or not.

Don’t think so? Think clear back to a time when (generally) a “market” meant a place in town where booths, shops and carts were set up to sell meats, produce, and other goods. That’s marketing at its most basic: a presence in the marketplace.

Bear with me, now, as I try to connect some dots.

Humans, by their very nature, are goal-seeking. We can’t escape it. Since we have goals, we also have strategies. Without thinking we form strategies and implement tactics to achieve objectives. From our perspective it seems like we’re just washing dishes or running errands, but the processes behind these actions relate to our goals. It’s automatic. It’s human nature.

The fishmonger had a marketing strategy, though he probably didn’t know it. In fact it’s debatable whether anyone really “knew” about marketing strategies until the 20th century. They existed nonetheless, good and bad – unexamined.

Everyone can agree that marketing is an inherent component of business. In fact, it’s so fundamental that you actually “do” marketing simply by having a storefront (offline or on).

Since you can’t escape “doing” marketing, and since you are a goal-seeking human, you already have a marketing strategy whether you can identify it or not. It may have been created by someone else in your organization, or it may simply be composed of various ideas you’ve encountered throughout your career, or from interaction with colleagues. It may or may not be a good strategy. Either way, you’re using it.

But the quality of that strategy really is the question. Given that most of the activities you engage in for business fall under the category “marketing” (many of them indirectly), it’s probably a good idea to take a hard look at those activities as a collective and consider whether or not the totality of your efforts is furthering your business goals.

After all, we’ve come a long way from village-square peddlers. Everything has changed: the basic economy, currency, range of customers, type and range of goods and services, the scope and scale of everything…marketing in a modern economy is much more complex. It takes multiple people, sometimes a large staff of just marketing folks. It takes strategy – well researched and articulated.

You have a marketing strategy. Ask yourself if it’s effective or not. Track data. Measure results. Refine your plan. Just don’t leave it up to chance.

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Photo credit: frli

Everyone Has a Marketing Strategy is a post from: RSA Blog