Yaffe Tidbits

5 Ways to Improve Your Business on a Micro-budget

If you’re an entrepreneur or smaller business looking to get more business on a small to miniscule budget, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that with all the free and low cost tools available in the digital and social media world, you can be quite effective without spending a lot of money. The bad news? To make it work, you do need to invest a lot of time sprinkled with inspiration and innovation. Having a personality helps, too.

More good news: many individuals and companies are finding a lot of productive leads and connections through these channels. More bad news: it’s not a quick fix. It’s something you need to commit to and keep at. That doesn’t mean it will take you a year or two to see any results. But, it does mean you can’t just post a brilliant blog or open a Twitter account and expect the new business to start flooding through your doors.

Here’s 5 ways you can start improving your business without seriously hurting your bottom line:

1. Connect, connect, connect.

Use all the social networking tools available to you. Social networking is a great way to connect with people who may need your product or services. Just make sure you don’t start by broadcasting how great you are or trying to sell something. It’s like a cocktail party. Start with small talk; find out where you have common interests and where you can help them with their needs. It’s a good way to get to know someone you’ve never met before. Once they like and know you, they’ll be much more likely to want to do business with you.

I would suggest starting with LinkedIn if you haven’t gotten into any network. It’s the most business oriented site. Here’s a good post on how one business owner used LinkedIn to get a board of directors seat. From there, it’s a matter of preference and what type of business you’re in. You may want to start a Facebook fan page or personal page next. Or you may find the immediacy of Twitter is more to your liking. Here’s a good post by Lara Galloway on how she uses Twitter as one of her main new business tools.

2. Answer Questions on LinkedIn

One the best features on LinkedIn is the Q&A section. Why? It gives you a chance to meet people out of your network, help them with a problem they have and display your expertise. Just go to the sections where questions are being asked on subjects that fit your business offerings and your area of expertise.

Here’s just one example of how that’s worked for me. I saw a question from a guy writing a book on social media. He was looking for examples of social media success stories. I told him about a campaign we’d done for one of our clients that had worked well. He liked it, we linked together and over the next 6 months had several conversations through LinkedIn messaging. This fall he was looking for judges for a big Blog Off competition his company was having. I volunteered and became part of an international "Dream Team" panel. Besides the publicity of the contest itself, I will be listed in an upcoming book as one of the world’s top social media people, will be talked about on a Blog Talk Radio show that reaches millions and in video shows by one of Europe’s top providers of online content. Not bad for a small business owner in Detroit.

3. Use Blog Talk Radio

This is a free, easy way to create podcasts for your own enterprise. There are two ways you can use Blog Talk Radio to help your business. One is to sign up at blogtalkradio.com and host your own show. This way you can have your own radio talk show. You can invite guests who will speak on subject matters relevant to your audience or you can invite guests who represent companies you want to do business with. Or you can sometimes just speak on subjects you’re knowledgeable about and make those podcasts available to your potential clients. For an example of doing your own show, you can look at the Mom Biz Coach show.

The second, and easier, way to use Blog Talk Radio is to volunteer your expertise to someone who has a show. Our head of Yaffe Direct, Michael Morin, went on the Chuck Talks Business show and had an hour long interview. It went well and, with Chuck’s permission, we downloaded the podcast and posted it on our Yaffe Tidbits site. We then edited a 2-minute teaser of some of the best parts of the interview. We emailed the two minute version to a list of prospects along with a link to the full podcast. Within a few weeks we got several inquiries from potential clients who we never would have gotten to talk to otherwise.

4. Buy a Flip Camcorder

You can get a really nice Flip Camcorder for around $125; I’d also pop for the small tripod that’s about $20-25. The Flip is an extremely easy way to shoot, edit and post videos to your site, blog, Facebook fan page, YouTube channel or wherever you can add video to your online presence. Video is a way to really put a face on your business. You can simply set it up on the tripod, point it at yourself and record a video blog. You can also record and post client testimonials. It’s also small and portable that you can carry it with you when you go to a conference, meeting, seminar, tweetup or wherever. At these events you can ask people’s opinions on whatever issues you’d like to cover for your clients/potential clients. It takes nothing to plug the Flip into your computer and use the included edit system to string together the comments you like and post that video to one of your sites. All this adds to both your content and your credibility.

5. Blog about potential clients

If you have a blog for your business (if you don’t, start one now), you can meet potential clients simply by asking them if you can interview them for an upcoming blog post. It’s a great way to meet and get to know someone in a non-sales environment (important note: don’t try and sell yourself or company during the interview). Who doesn’t like the idea of someone wanting to interview them for their expert opinion? More often than not, you’ll be able to find someone willing to talk about their business for the free publicity for both their company and themselves.

Even if you don’t get an interview, do research on the company and write a blog post about what they’re doing right as a company. Here’s an example of a post I wrote about Biggby Coffee. After creating it, send the post to them. Even if it doesn’t peak their interest in you, they may link the post to their own site or blog. We still get traffic to our blog from companies that have linked to a post about them from many months ago.

There you have it. Five ideas that should get your business some attention without spending an arm and a leg. I’d say good luck, but it really is just a matter of good hard work.

Originally posted on the Mom Biz Coach Blog as a guest post by Mike McClure, Partner, ECD

"How Do I Monetize My Blogs & Podcasts?"

It's a question asked more and more. Businesses and individuals are putting more time into blogs, podcasts and other digital media. And they want to know how this is going to make them money. You know it's something you should be doing in this digital age, but you wonder just how are you going to monetize it.

The short answer: you don't. At least not in the traditional media/marketing model. Sure you can add Google Ad Words to your blog and when you get big enough, have sponsors and paid ads on your digital material. But that's not going to get you the value you put into your company's blog or podcasts. The real value is in increasing your company's and your personal standing as an expert - the kind of people that other companies want to do business with.

In his book, Six Pixels of Separation, Mitch Joel says, "Anyone who creates content is creating media. That is the advertising. Everyone keeps searching for the ad model in blogs and podcasts, not realizing that the content and the individual producing it are the media. People see you as an expert and want to work with that expert."

That's the point. How you monetized your digital content is through the business that results from people knowing you, your expertise and wanting to work with you as a result. There are countless examples of companies getting business through this method. We ourselves had two potential clients call us wanting to know more after listening to a recent podcast by the head of Yaffe Direct, Michael Morin.

You don't ignore ROI. To the contrary, you need to think about it - a lot. You just need to look at it differently. In her blog post "10 Crucial Roles of a Social Media Director" Liz Strauss puts "be about ROI" fourth on her list. She goes on to say, "ROI is so important. If we don’t sell things, no one has a job. For years, we’ve known the value of conferences and trade shows, yet no one knows exactly how to measure their return. I’m thinking a certain similarity applies."

The long and short of it is this: you need to be out there in the digital space building your expertise. You just need to look at the value of doing it differently. What do you think? Have a success story of your own? I'd love to hear it.

Mike McClure, Yaffe ECD & Social Media Guy

Email Marketing – A Great Way to Get More Customers

There are many ways to communicate with customers, but email is one of the most effective and yes, even cutting edge, ways available today. Not only can you use it to get people excited about your brand and your products, but it can be used to get more people into your store.

One of the keys to attracting customers is relevancy. Your email communications should be only be sent if they give people relevant information. If you have a great sale or a special offer that is only available to them, that is relevant and likely to elicit a response.

We send out email campaigns for our clients only when they have something worthwhile to say to their customers. Which is why many emails correspond with the bigger holiday offers, because that's when we really have something of value for the customer. In fact, we usually email the segment that represents the best customers and offer them something above and beyond the public offer. So, with most of our emails, we are giving the customer a reason to come in and buy now. Most customers appreciate it when you let them know there is going to be a great deal, especially if it's on something they want.

Another key is frequency. You have to be careful not to send too many emails. No matter how relevant your message is, if you overload the customer's in-box, they will start to ignore you. So, you need to keep increasing your email list so you can have larger numbers with each email. That's why it's so important for retailers to develop methods of collecting email addresses from their customers.

Email marketing is also very cost-effective. The cost associated with emailing all of these people is low per person, but can add up. However, the revenue generated is proportionally higher, creating very good ROI (return on investment).Over the past year, for one of our retail furniture clients, we sent out just over 4-million emails to their best customers. of the people that were emailed, about 4500 came into the store and purchased. Since this past April, these email customers have spent of $4-million on new furnishings.

Combining media is also very effective. We see dramatically increased response rates when we email people who have already received a direct mail piece for our major sales events. Adding video to the emails, creating an "Advercast" has raised revenues even further, creating at least a 34% lift in sales.

Customers want to know what ways you offer them to save money on the things they want and they want to know that you care about them.

If you address them with respect, give them relevant information and great value - communicated in a format they respond to - you can lock them in as long-time customers.

Lauren Cavanagh, Account Coordinator

Web Video Increases Engagement & Sales

Engagement. It's one of the buzz words you hear all the time. But, it's true. With all the choices for the consumer's media time these days, you need to engage them in order to capture and keep their attention long enough to get your message. You need to give them something interesting or they will move on.

This is not just an excuse to be more creative with your marketing messages. It really works. It drives sales. Over and over again, we've seen that when we add an embedded video on our email marketing, creating an Advercast rather than a simple promotional email, sales go up. We tell everyone that we see a 34% lift in sales when we send out these Advercast emails. But, the numbers go up from there. We've seen incredible lifts in sales just by adding the video element. And we can see that we've increased engagement with these as well. The average person spends over a minute more on our Advercasts than on the promotional emails.

And you don't have to spend a lot of money to do it. It helps if you spend enough money to shoot or animate something spectacular. But you can create engaging videos for less if you get creative. Here's some of videos we created for our clients Advercasts. None of them cost more than $3000.

Video for the RoomPlace President's Day Sale email

Video for Robb & Stucky's Advercast

If you'd like to see more of our award winning web videos we've used to increase engagement and sales visit the podcast section of www.yaffetidbits.com. What other ways have you seen engagement result in sales?

Mike McClure, engaged and enthused

6 ways the decline of newspapers & magazines can hurt your business

I'm a newspaper guy. Been one all my life. Love my morning paper. Except now it only comes 3 times a week. And then, it's thin. I've already bemoaned this fact in a previous blog post. But, I hadn't given a lot of thought to what the decline of papers and magazines meant to business. UntilI read an article from Strategy + Business online today, called "What a Declining Business Media Means to CEOs" They listed 3 ways it hurts business:

1. More negative press about profits and enterprise. They said that as more experienced journalists (read: more expensive) are cut, younger ones come in. These less savvy journalists are more likely to be swayed by negative talk they hear and less likely to dig for evidence to the contrary.

2. Less of a platform for companies to spread their message/strategies. With fewer business publications and pages, along with fewer reporters. Companies just don't have as many outlets to tell their story. And we're not hearing about the innovative things they're doing.

3. Fewer opportunities to learn from each other. With less being reported on, companies don't have all these free case studies to read and learn from. They see less new ideas that could spur on new ideas of their own. The business press used to act as sort of a focus group of new ideas, but they are much fewer now.

To their list, I'd like to add a few more, focused on regional/local business news outlets:

4. Less distribution vehicles for circulars. A number of our clients put out weekly sale circulars, which have been traditionally stuffed into the newspaper. Now, some of the papers have gone away, others are offering limited days, but circulation is down, too. Mailing circulars is expensive. Stuffing them in other delivery methods, such as Advo, have their own problems. We've even started experimenting with digital circulars online.

5. Less co-op, added value benefits. Media outlets have always worked with businesses, especially on a local level, to give them added value through their media buys. Often they would partner on a joint venture in a marketplace or help with sponsorships for special events. They were also a sure place where retailers could get co-op money from manufacturers for ads. But, less space means fewer ads.

6. Less localization. As local business magazines and newspaper business sections shrink or disappear, there is less or even no local coverage to connect with the local/regional business scene. If a company is doing a local promotion or a local charity event to be a good corporate citizen, it's a lot harder to get those messages out.

What other ways to you see the decline of business journalism affecting business today?

Mike McClure, Partner, ECD

Bad Ad Placements Funny, If Not Yours.

It’s pretty safe to say that the advent of Google has transformed our lives. It has made it easy to access anything and everything. "Just Google it," has become a colloquial phase that we all know too well. The combination of today’s high speed technology and our "I needed it yesterday" mentality has made Google the search engine of the 21st century.

When it comes to advertising, Google has allowed more consumers to connect with the products and services they want in a matter of a few clicks, thanks to Google’s AdSense. AdSense’s contextualizing targeting capabilities has helped make it easier to place ads that tie directly into a users keyword search. This allows for easy ad placement in front of people who may be searching for your product or a similar product. What could be a daunting task for a media buyers, Google has made simple.

But that’s not without saying that it works perfectly. In his article, "The Best Examples of Google’s Worst Ads: When Contextual Advertising Goes Very Wrong," Nicholas Carlson, a writer for Business Insider, highlighting some of the worst (although horribly funny) contextual targeting. For example, Reuters.com posted the story "Over 250 sick after eating at Indiana Olive Garden." Right below the headline was a coupon for a Free Dinner for Two at Olive Garden.

 

As these examples show, AdSense doesn’t necessarily understand the concept of "the right place at the right time" and sometimes works against the purpose of the advertising. But you have to admit, they sure are funny.

Carolyn Klein, laughing in the art department.

EDITORS NOTE: Since the reference article now requires an Ad Age password to read. Here's a similar article with humorous contextual ad examples, in case you don't have an Ad Age account or if you just want to see more examples.

Want my business? Customize me!

Guest post by Chuck Smith of Chuck Talks Business.

I was reading Chris Brogan's blog the other day. The topic was the myth of brand loyalty. In the post Chris talks about a recent e-mail that he got from Apple and his disappointment that it appeared they did not customize the communication with him based on his previous transactions with them.

The main point of the piece is essentially that he's had a long standing relationship with Apple making large ticket purchases and there is an expectation of reciprocity of loyalty for customization in the relationship.

I say fair enough. Actually, there are number of things that come to mind where this kind of relationship can be strengthened and the customer could feel more engaged with the vendor. I recently did a show where I interviewed Michael Moran, Executive Vice Pres. of client services and head of Yaffe Direct at the Yaffe group where we discussed direct marketing.

Here are a few things that I would like to see:

1. My grocery store actually use the information that I gave them permission to use on every purchase. You know I like that brand of pasta, just give me an email with coupons customized to my tastes. I like to see the "you saved" bit on the bottom of my receipt, but I would love to feel like you actually customized something for me and my tastes.

2. An end to Robo-calls. I accept it from my credit card company, but even they have a selection to put me in touch with an early fraud detection specialist directly from the call. If you are Robo-calling me and you expect me to call you back - You're doing it wrong.

3. Web experiences that let me make informed buying decisions. California Faucets is a great example. My wife is looking to make changes in the bathroom. I know, I know, every guy just tuned out, but here's the cool thing. She was all about being able to go to this site, choose the spout, the handle and the finish. The site allows you to print a picture of your choices and gives you the option to find a retailer by location.

I want to know what you think. What could brands do to make you feel like you were getting something more back for being loyal?

Be the Story You Want Told and Let Your Customers Tell It

Guest blog by Lori Jo Vest, co-author of "Who's Your Gladys? How to Turn Even Your Most Difficult Customer into Your Biggest Fan"

As a frequent (too frequent) user of social media (okay, I’ll admit it, I’m addicted to Facebook), I am fascinated with what people choose to tell the other people in their world. Some complain about their jobs, others are happy and cheerful ALL THE TIME, while still another group seem to constantly promote their strong political opinions.

I’m on Facebook (a lot) and while the majority of my friends and customers use it, I’m surprised by how many business people aren’t taking advantage of this ongoing, never-ending social conversation. "I’m too busy," they say. "I don’t have time for it." Many of these folks are in their fifties or sixties and they’re expressing their truth. They just don’t have time for any more "media" in their lives, social or not.

One of these people, though I don’t know him personally, is Ernie of Ernie’s Market in Oak Park, Michigan. And while he may not be a social media gadfly, his customers have dragged him into the new age of online conversations.

I’m in the throes of promoting a new book and we recently put a call out on our Facebook fan page for volunteers to appear in a YouTube video about customer service. One of our fans, Sherry Woodbeck, sent me an incredibly enthusiastic email, suggesting that we visit Ernie. "He has a great little market that makes and sells the most fantastic sandwiches in the state!" she gushed. "He is on YouTube and Facebook - NOT because he wanted to be - it was his many, many fans" that started a fan page for him.

I took a look on the YouTube video and at Ernie’s Facebook fan page and was immediately intrigued by how Ernie’s old-fashioned approach to customer service has inspired a loyal following that has created a space for him in the new world of social media.

The YouTube video was created by a customer, who took his camera into the store while Ernie was making his famous $5 sandwiches "with love" (a secret mix of spices) and calling everybody "Baby!" In the interview clips, Ernie talks about how "love" makes everything taste better and how his customers are his family. His passion for his work is obvious and makes you wish you were standing in line at Ernie’s with all of his other enthusiastic customers. Take a look at the video here.

Ernie’s Facebook fan page is pretty amazing, too. People are continually commenting on their love for Ernie and his sandwiches. They number over 1,100 as of this writing.

What is it that has inspired such ferocious enthusiasm? Ernie’s customer service is fantastic. He gives everyone his complete attention when they’re placing their order. He takes interest in them and remembers their names. He makes sure his product is fantastic and adds his own brand of "love" to every order.

He even has a special surprise for every new customer. If you tell him it’s your first time at Ernie’s, he asks you to close your eyes and he puts a chilled Hershey’s Kiss in your hand. "For some reason, those Hershey Kisses are the best you’ve ever had," mused Sherry. "My daughter loves him. When she went to college last year, she had (a picture of) Him and his $5.00 sandwich on her door."

Do you want what Ernie has created? Getting it is simple, but not always easy. It comes from holding a genuine positive regard for every customer who walks into your business. It’s about putting your passion into words, and expressing your joy as you give them your attention. Sound intimidating? It’s not about putting on an act or trying to be Ernie, particularly if your nature is more subdued. It’s about expressing in your own genuine way your passion for your profession. Customers will love you when you love them first. It starts with you. Your enthusiasm will become a mirror that will reflect back passionate customer support

– the kind that spreads virally and increases referral business. Show that they matter by what you say, what you do, and how you offer them a quality experience. Start today.

Lori Jo Vest currently manages a Michigan-based television production studio, Communicore Visual Communications. After twenty years in relationship-based sales and customer service, she recently co-authored "Who’s Your Gladys? How to Turn Even the Most Difficult Customer into Your Biggest Fan," a customer service book slated for release through AMACOM Books/NY in September. You can learn more at

www.communicore.tv and www.whosyourgladys.com .

Do you know what your brand's personality is?

Your brand has a public persona, whether you know it or not. Its personality can be one you carefully crafted or it can be something that just grew organically without any nurturing. It may be something different to each of your constituencies or a solid persona for all to see. But your company or brand definitely has one.

We just created social media strategies for a couple of our clients. One of the first things we tell them is that you need to know what your brand personality is. It's important to speak in one voice, whether it's in marketing, pr, brochures, your website or internal memos. It's doubly important once you get into social media, because you need to make sure the voice you're speaking in is one your fans and followers will recognize as being yours.

How do you discover your brand personality? It can be a simple as looking at your communications and asking people, both within and without your company what they think it is and then building consensus. Or it can be as intricate as the brand analysis and corporate culture discovery practices Yaffe/Deutser performs for clients.

What do you do if you have multiple brands within a company? Usually each brand will have it's own distinct personality and then the unifying company has a personality that encompasses all its parts. Look at it as a family. If you are the Jones family, each member has their own personality, but yet they have parts of their personality that make them all Jones.

Let me illustrate by going through our family of brands. The Yaffe Group has five different family members, each with their own personality:

Yaffe/Deutser is very serious, professional and respectful. It has a quiet richness to it. This is a personality befitting what they do. They are a consulting firm that does some pretty heavy and intricate brand, research and corporate culture work. They have deep relationships with their clients and delve deep into some pretty serious analytics that can have a large impact on the businesses they work with. The current corporate culture project they're working on is profoundly changing the way that client does business on so many levels, most of them not even dealing with marketing or talking to the public.

Barrelhouse Creative is just the opposite. They are brash, flamboyant, quick with a quip. It has a tongue-in-cheek attitude. It's a hired gun who comes into town, makes some noise, tells its story, fixes the problem in a blaze of glory and rides on to the next town. This personality also fits the kind of work they do and the relationships they have. They are expected to come up with something flashy, something bright, something that will cause people to take notice. They are usually hired for project work and are only brought in when a problem needs to be taken care of. Once it's done they move on the the next one.

Yaffe Direct is the geek of the family. They are all about immersing themselves in data and finding patterns no one else sees. They're smart and quirky. Sometimes no one really understands what they do. But, everyone expects brilliance and results. They figure out equations and develop new technologies and gadgets that do wonderful things. Sort of Einstein meets Mr. Peabody. This fits in with what they do, too. They take client's data, find patterns, use new technology whether digital or new ways of using old tech and discover ways to get better results than the client was getting before.

Yaffe & Company is the cagey street fighter. They've been around the longest and know how to get things done when you're in a bind. They're the kind of company you want with you when you're fighting for your company's life. They've worked with all kinds of clients, but have a strong background in helping retailers wage the every day battle of gaining share and moving products. They have a bit of McGyver in them too. Always finding new ways to get a leg up on competition. It's out of this company that the newest disciplines, like digital marketing and social media, are coming.

The Yaffe Group is the parent for all these siblings. its personality is that of a kindly father figure with a twinkle in his eye. He is always handing out good sage advice. Often dotes on his kid's accomplishments. And isn't above pulling the old "pull my finger" trick on the newbies. If you look at the social media communications from The Yaffe Group, you'll see that combination of factors building the personality through what is said and how it's said on the Facebook and Twitter accounts.

So, what's your brand's personality? Leave a comment and let us know. Or if you need help figuring it out, give us a shout. One of us should be able to help!

Mike McClure, Top Gunslinger and Storyteller

What if you spent $12 million in direct marketing and nobody came?

Imagine you are a $2 billion retailer who’s realized you were wasting 20% of your $60 million direct marketing budget because the mail wasn’t getting to the right customer. They essentially were spending $12 million with no return on that investment. That’s a case study that was presented at the annual CRM Conference I attended in Chicago recently. Another case study focused on a large retailer’s problems with email marketing. In fact, many retailers were complaining about revenues being down. That shouldn't surprise anyone in today's economy. But one presenter talked about revenue from loyal customers actually being up. That's also a trend we’ve been seeing consistently over this last year with our furniture clients.

No matter how big or small the company, we are all victims of flawed business strategies at some time. Success is all about recognizing and correcting them, like the $2 billion retailer I mentioned above did. What’s not surprising, is that it took an outsider to do it. It's sometimes hard to see the faults in your own plan or program when you're too close to it. That’s why consultants like us exist.

The other big topic at CRMC was social media. Guru Jay Dunn from Lane Bryant talked about it as "the end of the freakin' world." Like with most technology-driven media, consumers are ahead of the marketers. And what’s scary is that by the time we think we’re catching up, the consumer’s moved on. One of the basic tenets of social media is people follow people they find interesting. So you’ve got to make it interesting. Look at what Sea World's doing and you’ll know what I mean.

While social media is still a relatively unproven marketing tool, there is an ability to experiment with it rather cheaply. Social media is a tool that augments your marketing, it’s not a strategy. You need a purpose behind it. Some others that are using the medium well are Dell, Comcast and Starbucks. We like it from the direct marketing standpoint, because it’s trackable and measureable. For more on this go to the supergroup ning page

Michael Morin, EVP,Yaffe Direct