Tag Archives: customer

Facebook – A New Marketing Avenue

by Brian Whitbread

Facebook and Social Media – The Next Marketing Opportunity

Marketing as an activity is all about reaching the right customers with the right products, and the result sought is delighted customers who are more than willing to open their purses wide enough to boost your revenues. For many years, marketers stalked their target customers through various means and by trying to get their message across to spread awareness about their wares.

Traditional Means of Communication

Traditionally, marketing communications were conducted via print, broadcast and such traditional media through disruptive advertising, where advertisements appear in between the content of interest for the customer.

Traditional media does give a large reach to a marketer with its programming of mass appeal. However, the wastage is equally high, since a large portion of the audience would belong to a different segment than the one that is to be targeted by the marketer.

Enter Social Media and the Internet

The revolution stirred by the internet as a medium took place because of the fact that it is highly personalized and provides more content on-demand than any other available medium. Social sites proliferated far and wide in their usage for a few simple reasons:

The power to create and distribute content is equally available to every user, irrespective of him/her being a customer or a marketer. In the earlier forms of media, that power rested with the editorial staff of the channel or the advertiser, but hardly ever with the user. The medium is completely personalized, and a user can create or join groups and further create content based on what he/she likes. Opinions are free and fair. This is one reason why social media is of utmost concern to marketers, since buying decisions are no more influenced as much by advertisements. The traditional word-of-mouth marketing approach has grown leaps and bounds on social networks.

Facebook – At the Center of Social Media

With 500 million (and growing) unique users worldwide, Facebook is the number one social networking site in terms of activity and subscriptions. What started as a garage initiative by Mark Zuckerberg has now become the biggest phenomenon on the internet.

A user interface that allows for quick communication and the ability to create fan pages and groups at the click of a mouse button are what make Facebook extremely popular. Another important reason for its immense popularity is the wide variety of social applications that have been developed and made available within the Facebook environment.

These applications can allow users and friends to do joint activities like playing games that run endlessly, sharing photos, videos, and web links, and many more.

How does this help a marketer?

Traditionally, media plans were drawn to include television channels, publications, or any other media that can grab maximum eyeballs and effectively reach a selected target audience. The science of segmentation and targeting has become only more accurate in the case of social media.

Facebook provides a wide variety of avenues to communicate with the audience, which opens up an entirely different world of possibilities to have a fruitful dialogue with customers. Some of these methods used popularly by marketers are:

Advertising: The first opportunity, which is the most obvious one, is advertising on Facebook. The difference, however, is the fact that you can create your own advertisement in a matter of minutes and also specify the details of your target group in terms of demographics and types of discussions where you want your advertisement to appear. Fan Pages: Facebook allows every brand, as well as individual users, to create fan pages for their favorite celebrities and their own homegrown businesses. Large brands have also created their official pages on Facebook that have a huge, immediate fan following around the world. The fan page has immense utility to convey first hand information about the brand and also to collect immediate and frank feedback from your customers. Branded applications: One of the most effective ways to engage a user toward your brand is by creating an application; this could be a game or a contest, with your branding coming across subtly through it.

What makes Facebook even more exciting is the way it allows you to target your communication sharply just to the customer segment you want to attract. It also provides analytics and page insights that give good feedback and measurement on the activity done.

The options provided by Facebook can be creatively explored and used judiciously for bringing about maximum benefits to any brand.

However, while doing all this, you need to be aware of the fact that customers have an equal say and have the ability to respond immediately to any of your actions with a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Availing the service of a social media consultant to work out a social media strategy may be required so that your efforts will not be in vain.

Get more information here for the best Facebook training available: http://tinyurl.com/Action-On-Facebook

About the Author

Internet Marketing Development Practitioner

9 Highly Effective Spa Marketing & Salon Marketing Tips

by John Uhrig

“9 Highly Effective Spa Marketing and Salon Marketing Tips!”

Spa and Salon Marketing & Advertising Strategies

Here are 9 low-cost but highly effective spa and salon marketing tips to help you boost your sales and profits fast.

Tip 1: Look for some low-cost ways you can strengthen the perceived value of your spa products or treatments. You can easily do this by adding in other treatments and products by packaging your offers. Then test raising your price. Don’t be surprised if both your sales and your profit margin go up!

Tip 2: Try to limit your customer’s decision making to either “Yes. I’ll buy.” or “No. I won’t buy.” Don’t risk losing them by including “which one” decisions. The more options you offer the client, the more likely some customers will procrastinate and never make the decision… causing you to lose a sale needlessly.

Tip 3: You can demonstrate a low cost for your salon products or hair services by breaking down the price to its lowest time increment. For example, “Enjoy all of this for less than 90 cents a day” (for something priced at $325 a year like your salon membership program).

Tip 4: Add an unanticipated bonus to every sales transaction just before completing the sale. It prevents customers from developing any last minute hesitation… and changing their minds about buying.

Tip 5: Print your best small ad on a postcard and mail it to prospects in your local targeted area. Postcards are dog cheap and easy to use. Most recipients who ignore other types of advertising will read a brief ad when it’s delivered to them via a postcard.

Tip 6: Prospects who ask questions are typically close to buying. Take advantage of this. Don’t just answer their question. Include a reason for them to buy your spa treatments as part of your answer. Then ask for the sale… or tell them exactly what to do to place their order. i.e. “We accept Visa, MasterCard, Amex or cash, which would you prefer?”

Tip 7: Collect testimonials from your clients and use them in all your spa marketing efforts. Testimonials provide grounds that your spa products or treatments deliver the results you promise. For maximum impact, use only testimonials that describe specific results the customer enjoyed.

Tip 8: Include “benefit rich” headlines on all your salon marketing material including your website! Many visitors arrive at a web page then immediately click away… unless something instantly catches their attention and keeps them from leaving. A headline accomplishes this!

Tip 9: Continually test and evaluate everything you use or do to promote your spa business and salon. Allocate 80 percent of your spa marketing budget to proven promotions. Use the other 20 percent for testing new variations. Most salon businesses using this system continue growing – even in highly competitive markets.

Bonus Tip: Handle client complaints quickly and with a positive attitude. Strive to preserve your relationship with them instead of your immediate profit from the transaction. They will reward you with repeat sales and referrals… instead of punishing you by telling everybody they know about their unhappy experience using your day spa or salon and causing you to lose future clients.

Each of these spa marketing and salon marketing tips provides a simple, low-cost way for you to boost your sales and profits quickly. All you have to do is take ACTION!

Dedicated To Multiplying Your Revenues…

About the Author

Since 1994, John Uhrig has successfully used the Internet to effectively convey and market information. Recently, John decided to create a beauty salon, day spa & salon marketing system where he shares his experience and information for proper marketing. This System can be found at: http://www.spamarketing.ca

Secrets To Getting Customer Loyalty

by Adriana Noton

As a business owner or anyone who works with customers, your main goal is to get customer loyalty. You want those customers to keep coming back for more. While many different places are creating cards that gives those who have them incentives to practice this, many of these places have forgotten the old fashioned things that creates this. What are some of those things?

One of those things is just how you interact with customers. Customers want to be heard. They want to know that they have your attention. They want to be able to have a wide variety of ways to get a hold of the people that they are wishing to speak to. Opening that line of communication will ensure that they have what they need to be a customer of yours.

The next thing that will give you this is by taking the time to work with customers and making it seem as though you really want to work with them. All too often people swear off companies because they feel that the person that was helping them if anyone at all helped them was rude to them. Things like answering the phone and not telling a person that you have to take that call or even not greeting them can make it seem as though you don’t want to help them or that you take them seriously.

Something else that will ensure that your customers will keep coming back is that you take into consideration what they are feeling. There are times when they might have thought the price was something else. They might have thought that coupon wasn’t expired. Sometimes, in order to keep clients you have to meet them half way.

Another thing is that you think before you speak. The tone you use and the words you use can be seen as offensive to customers. You want to approach them with a smile and a warm greeting. This makes them feel as though hey I’m welcome here. That is something that makes a person feel very nice. How could you pass this up.

There are other things as well. One of those other things is that you work with deadlines. If you set a date or tell them that something will be done by a certain date, then you keep your word. All too often now days, people don’t pay any attention to this. When you tell a customer something like this you are basically making a promise or a contract in one way or another. They trust your word and therefore, they expect it to be done.

Last of all, when it comes to good customer service, you should make sure that you own up to things. If you make a mistake, fix it. If they can’t find what they are looking for, try making it up to them. Go that extra mile. When you do, it might give you a happy customer.

These are all things that you can do to make sure that customers keep coming back. It’s the things like this that keep customers thinking that they do come first like a customer should. So, if you aren’t practicing these, then you might have so many loyal fans. It’s time to get back to what really matters.

About the Author

We have Canada’s foremost retail marketing program. With our loyalty cards we have proven customer loyalty with wonderful rewards.