I attended the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce business card exchange last night. When I told business members that I do management and marketing consulting, many small business owners told me that they need help with their online marketing because they do not have the time or knowledge to implement it themselves.
My first suggestion to them was to begin by developing a plan with a budget. If they don't know how to start that, they should talk to a marketing consultant, such as myself, to develop a manageable plan and budget to, not only implement online marketing, but also maintain it ongoing. It is the constant touch in your target market that brings inbound customers to purchase. Online marketing is a constant cycle of: content (e.g. blog, landing pages), SEO, emails, social media, online ads, mobile optimization, analysis and conversion. If your budget cannot accommodate working on all of the cycle stages, focus on a couple of them to start, then expand when you can afford it in time and budget.
My second suggestion was to hire a marketing consultant who knows how to do all of this and can maximize your results with what you can afford. Part of developing an online marketing plan is to define your desired results, this helps you to understand what it takes to achieve them. As you continue to analyze your online marketing efforts, you can modify the plan to put more effort in to what is working and less in to what is not for your business.
If you have questions or would like to meet for a free consultation, please contact me with your available dates and times, and we can set up a phone call, video call or face-to-face meeting.
I will be instructing "Exercising Leadership to Facilitate Adaptive Change" from the National Fire Administration's Executive Skills Series, in Georgia and Colorado in May.
A key element of the course is that change happens to us all of the time, whether we like it or not, but Adaptive Change happens when people believe in and support the change (maybe for the betterment of their organization or community).
Adaptive Change is hard to accomplish because there is usually no standard or known way to implement it, it requires good leadership techniques to work with others to be a part of the change process. Once a leader and team agree on why and how the change is needed, it takes vision and the ability to communicate it clearly and specifically to implement Adaptive Change -- a leader who can see the forest from the trees and helps others to do so.
This is a good idea for every-day use -- when we are struggling with small issues, stop and take a big picture perspective on your situation, look at it from a different angle, and you might help yourself and your team work through the issue and move forward!
In preparation to teach "Customer Service Excellence: How to Win and Keep Customers" for the American Management Association (AMA) in Chicago next week, I am reading a Harvard Business Review (HBR) September-2013 article that will be handed out in the class, "The Truth About Customer Experience: Touchpoints matter, but it's the full journey that really counts." by Alex Rawson, Ewan Duncan and Conor Jones.
Customer touchpoints are moments when customers interact with your organization. Some organizations focus on successful interactions, but would benefit exponentially by working toward a productive customer journey, including all of the customers' touchpoints and the organization's processes for those events. Organizations that successfully manage the entire customer experience benefit with: greater customer satisfaction, reduced customer attrition, increased revenue and higher employee satisfaction. An organizational benefit of a proactive customer service process is more-effective collaboration among functions and levels within the organization.
How do you identify your customer's journey? Begin with working sessions with executives and key managers to identify the prominent customer journey(s) and their problem points (e.g. discrepancies in sales promises and actual product/service delivered), including judgement and actual data. Then involve the entire organization to verify touchpoints and design customer service practices to meet and exceed customer needs. Organizational buy-in and a cross-functional approach ensures that a successful customer journey is the responsibility all of your organization's employees. A siloed organization cannot achieve a maximized customer journey, as open communication and team problem-solving are the keys to building a successful road map on which to continuously test and modify.
As with any organizational process, new or established, constant testing with customers and data analysis is key to keeping customers and remaining competitive. Front-line ownership with the power to change the process and the organization to be more productive, is vital to organizational growth through maximized customer journey.
Consultants, such as myself, can help you gain an unbiased view of your organization and your customer service, through meeting facilitation and data analysis to help guide you through this discovery and process development. Contact us with questions.