Why your Customers are Better than you

"This is just ridiculous" is what you may be thinking. But let's go back to the old adage the customer is always right and just think on that for a little while. 

Let's breakdown this claim and take a few steps back because you probably think I'm crazy. To help clarify my claim, we are going to start with that very statement:

The customer is always right
Whether you think so or not, this is always true*. If the customer says that t-shirt at Kohl's isn't worth $35 and doesn't fit right, it isn't worth $35 and doesn't fit right. Of course this only directly applies to the consumer that thinks it. However, the consumer that thinks it is likely to share what they think on social media, with their best friend, and on online reviews on the company website. Which leads me to my next point:

Customers are more influential and credible than you are

You heard me right, they are more credible than the company that sells the product. It doesn't matter if Kohl's thinks that shirt is fully worth $35 and fits consumers just fine. One consumer's opinion can influence another consumer's purchase quite easily. When it comes to decision time, a potential buyer will probably ask five of his closest friends what they recommend. They will also check out websites like Yelp and take a look at the customer reviews on the company's website. Which, surprise, are made from even more consumers! According to this article, a whopping 70% of consumers look at online reviews before making a purchase. That is a market you can't create and you can't control, but it is important to monitor the online chatter surrounding your product. It is also important to take those reviews and customer ideas and listen to them:

Your customers know what customers want.

According to Bill Lee, from an article on franchising.com, in "one compilation of studies of 1,193 commercially successful innovations across nine industries by MIT's Eric von Hippel, 737 (60 percent) came from customers". This supports the fact that consumers know what buyers want; they work to fulfill their own needs and create and purchase products that they would want to buy.

So your next question is probably, "how can I be better than my customers?" because that's obviously where every business owner wants to achieve! I'm going to break it down into three basic tips:

1. Listen to your customer! Even though you can't meet all of their wants and needs, you can at least work to improve the products or services you sell to better fit your target customer.
2. Observe online chatter. It is important to Google your business and watch how often customers are posting about you and what kind of things they are saying. This obviously takes us back to point #1.
3. Make sure your customer receives the best service you can offer. Even if your product isn't right for that customer, ensure that their experience is a good one. Great customer service can go a long way in online review sites, social media sites, and word of mouth chatter between friends.

What else do you think your customers are better at than you? What do you do to make the best product for your customers?

Until next time!
~Melissa

Fun fact: No one really knows who first uttered the phrase: "The customer is always right". It is widely believed that is was first said by Harry Gordon Selfridge, an employee at the original Marshall Fields store back in the late 1800s. However, some say that Marshall Field, the founder of the original Marshall Fields and Harry's boos said it first and it was quickly picked up by his employee, who is widely given credit for this phrase.

*To clarify, I would like say that the customer is always right in the customer's mind and will tend to share with other people how "right" they are. Many times the customer has unsupported facts, terrible claims, and outrageous statements (I've worked in retail and sales, I've heard a lot of statements in which I utter under my breath "that customer is not right") but in the end will only make the purchase if it is right for them. 

Five Easy Places to Find Social Media Content

Do you ever find yourself staring at your computer, wracking your brain for the answer to "what the heck am I going to post on Facebook today"?

Fear not social media mangers: there are easy ways and places to find content that are right under your nose. Many of the places I look for content are easy to search and filled with oodles of content just for you!

1. Google Images: The neat thing about Google Images is that you can literally search anything and at least something will come up. Let's say you are doing social media for a lawn care company and you are trying to find a picture to encourage engagement on your page. Google "funny lawn" in images. The page literally doesn't end and there are hilarious content pictures for you to use!

Caution: If you are going to be publishing something using one of the Google images, make sure you are not breaking copy write!

2. Twitter: Twitter feeds are filled with a wealth of relevant information for your company if you know how to search for it. An easy way to find related content is to go into the search box and use a hashtag term to look for content. Let's use the example of a marketing company. A marketing company may search hashtags such as: #marketing, #SEO, #socialmedia, and #advertising. An endless Twitter feed of information will appear and I promise you will find at least one article or tip you can use for your social media.

Caution: Make sure to click the link before your re-tweet to actually read the article and make sure the link works. If bad content is present, you may upset your followers.

3. Wikipedia: Yes I know you are saying, "what is she thinking?" but seriously, it works for finding topics to search for. Let's say you run social media for a handyman company. Put "handyman" into the search bar and quickly skim through the article. Scroll down and you'll see a section of the article that gives you a whole list of "handyman jobs". Now, you can use those as search terms on other sites to find content.

Caution: Wikipedia is meant to be an "idea box" (in my opinion). It gives you a good overview of information, but many of the facts, figures, and articles listed on that site are not reliable and you want to caution yourself against giving false information to your customers.

4. Pinterest: The best thing about Pinterest is the variety of content. Not only can you find good pictures, you can also find articles on virtually any topic, websites you've never heard of, and that "perfect post" you've been waiting to find. It's easy to search for key terms and browse general categories until you find what you are looking for.

Caution: If you are re-pinning any of the material you find, make sure to click on the image and see where it goes. You don't want to direct your customers to a dead-end website or a competitor!

5. Social media sites for companies like yours: Who knows the industry better than your competitors? Similar social media sites can be a great resource. What I mainly use this for is seeing what topics they are posting about, how often they are posting, and maybe to use some of their content.

Caution: Is this content poaching? Well it can be if you steal all their content all the time,so use this one in moderation.

I hope that this gives you some ideas of where to find a variety of quality content for your various social media sites!

What resources do you use for finding content? How do you keep your ideas fresh and interactive?

~Melissa

Resumes and Personal Branding: Basic Resume Building Tips

You may be thinking: Why is she writing about resumes on her marketing blog?

Well, resumes can be the first impression a potential employer receives of you and it is your chance to market yourself! Self-branding is extremely important in your career; think about what you want to do, what your long and short term goals are, and who you want to be as a career women or man.

Resumes can be tricky. It is hard to know what to include and what not to include. You may also struggle with making your minimum wage job sound like the best learning experience in the universe. And many people struggle with knowing where to start when creating a resume.

That's what I'm here for! I am going to run down my top tips on creating a simple resume and how to make it stand out and shape your personal brand.

We'll start with a simple list of what to include and what not to include.

• Make sure to include: 
• Education level: You worked hard to get into college and/or grad school and you want to make sure to include that hard work is on your resume. If high school is the highest level you completed, you'll at least want to state that you have your GED or high school diploma.
• Your correct contact information: Be sure to include a current address, phone number, and email address that your possible employer may contact you at.
• Keywords: Because employers receive so many resumes, many large companies will use something called a parser. Basically  they send your resume through a scanner and look for keywords, allowing the "best" applicants to rise to the surface. Applicant tracking systems are becoming more and more advanced and have become a staple at many companies. An easy way to make sure to include keywords is by seeing which keywords are repeated in the job description and using relevant terms from the industry.
• Accomplishments, not just duties: Instead of simply listing the duties you performed, make sure to include accomplishments and goals achieved to support why they are important enough to be listed on your resume. Instead of saying "Sold medical equipment" say "increased sales of medical equipment by 11% from 2011-2012"
• A custom file name: Simply saving it as "resume" and sending it over will allow your resume to get lost in a sea of job applicants. My recommended format is Lastname_Firstname_TitleofCompany. This shows them that you took the time to customize the resume to fit their company and will also allow them an easy reference point of who's resume they are looking at.
• Bullet points and organization: Organize your resume in a way that fits the career best and that is easy to understand for any one looking at it. Use bullet points, white space, and lines to help aid in the organization and spruce up your resume at the same time.
• Make sure not to include:
• Your picture: This is a debated topic, but it my opinion, you want to avoid having a picture so the potential employer cannot make a judgement about you before even reading your resume.
• Your age: This goes along with the photo-why would you want to give your potential employer a reason to pre-judge you?
• Your objective: This is also debated. Many will say you need to include your objective to ensure that the employer knows your long term career goals. But let's be honest, the objective of turning in a resume is to get the job you are applying for, so why do you need to state that on the resume? A more appropriate place for this is in the cover letter attached to your resume.
• Spelling errors: The wrong use of a verb, spelling errors, missed commas, and any other grammatical errors you can think of will be a huge turnoff for potential employers. If you cannot take the time to check for spelling errors as an applicant, what makes them think you will do a quality job as a new hire? 45% of executives said they threw away a resume after just one typo; 31% said they discard them after two
• The award that you won for the spelling bee while you were in fifth grade: Yes this is oddly specific, but what I'm hinting to is that you should include only relevant, timely, and important information on your resume. Employers already spend so little time on your resume, why fill it up with information that they won't care about?

Having a solid base for your resume will help you create your personal brand piece by piece. Yes resumes need to be professional, but it doesn't mean it can't have some sort of personality! As you have more jobs that help you grow in your field, you'll see your personal brand develop right in front of you.

Two side notes: All resumes should also come with a custom-crafted cover letter in an appropriate format that outlines basically why you should get the job that you applied for. Resumes should also be an appropriate length-I recommend a one page resume with a reference to visit your LinkedIn profile to see the full resume.

What tips would you give a person that is new to applying to jobs? What has worked well for you in the past?

Good luck to all of those career seekers out there! With the right resume, you can get your foot in the door of that dream job.

~Melissa

"If you call failures experiments, you can put them on your resume and claim them as achievements" ~Mason Cooley

Five Marketing Focal Points for Small Businesses

Are you a small business that is just starting out and needs to know what to focus on most? Of course with opening your own business, you know that there are many important things that you need to put your energy toward. I do not personally own a small business, but I've worked with many small business owners and based off of my own experiences, below are my personal top five marketing focal points for small businesses.

1) Social media platforms

Social media platforms are great; they are free and they are easy. They work well in trying to get out your message in an effective and engaging way. Social media platforms are growing in users and variety and really can cater to any kind of business.

Social media comes with its challenges, however. Although the platforms are free to use, they are not free to run when you take into account your time and effort that goes into them. And yes the platforms are easy, but you must learn the difference between how to run a personal account and how to run a business account!

2) Networking events

Networking events are a great way to market your business and yourself as a business owner. Many events have a networking portion where you go around the room to hand out your business card and collect others in exchange. There are also events hosted that are purely for networking; at these events people are asking to be told about your business and how it can help them. Be sure to prep your elevator speech and bring plenty of business cards.

Networking does take time, effort, and a little bit of money, but can pay off quickly when you meet that client that can help take your business off the ground!

3) Purchase a good website

You are going to want to pay a little more to get a website that is fully functional for your business needs, is mobile optimized, and has great SEO. Of course you want to live within your means when purchasing a website, but you want remember to create a website that is easy to use and provides your customers with valuable information. In this day and age, you need to make sure that your website is mobile capable if not mobile optimized. Many customers now access their information on a phone versus a computer—you want to make sure you aren't stopping your customers from doing so! And finally you want to spend at least a little time on SEO for your site. You need to make sure customers can find you via search queries and that you have a high page rank.

Websites can get expensive quickly, so make sure to be prepared for a large total if you are looking to build a large website with all the bells and whistles.

4) Blog

Blogs do many great things for your business and your website. It provides your customers with valuable information in addition to providing a reason for them to keep coming back to your site! If you are consistent on the timing of your blog as well as providing great content, you will attract subscribers and in turn, customers. An extra benefit of having a blog is that it keeps your site active and shows Google you are making updates to your site often, proving that you are a business that does real business!

Blogging does take time and effort to do correctly. You need to post consistently and constantly come up with new topic ideas that you think will interest your customer enough to make them subscribe.

5) Business cards

Spend a little extra money and get custom-designed, high-quality business cards. Having these from the start help you to establish your brand and your credibility. Business cards can be used at networking events as well as your place of business; they help to remind your customers you exist!

They can be expensive to get designed, but your business will thank you later.

See Do we Still Need Business Cards in this Digital Age?

Of course the marketing tips for small businesses are truly unlimited. Do you own a small business? What marketing tips do you have for potential entrepreneurs? 

Until next time!

~Melissa

"Behind every small business, there's a story worth knowing. All the corner shops in our towns and cities, the restaurants, cleaners, gyms, hair salons, hardware stores - these didn't come out of nowhere." ~Paul Ryan

Social Media for Business Part 3: Pinterest for Business

I am completing a three-part series on social media platforms for businesses with one blog for Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. Welcome to Part 3!

I will be highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of using Pinterest based on my own experience; I do social media marketing for almost ten different companies, so I'll be sure to take the best of the best advice to pass on to you!

Let's begin with the advantages of using Pinterest for your business:

1) Pinterest is a visual platform: In general, people are lazy! Pinterest makes it easy to visually share things related to your business as well as your product without requiring the user to do all that much work.
2) It's easy-really easy: Pinterest is basically a digital bulletin board and they make it work exactly as such. It's also very easy to browse content and search specifically for content for your pages.
3) Just like other social media platforms, you don't have to just talk about your business: Let's say you own a flooring company. You can make boards for the wood you sell and picture of houses you've done. You can also make boards of neat home remodel ideas, pin about the town your business is based out of, and even a DIY board for home improvements. The possibilities are endless with Pinterest and it's easy to gain interest just by having interesting content.
4) You can use hashtags and key terms to make your content more searchable: Just like Twitter, you can add hashtags to your pin to increase the reach of your pin.
5) It's good for your SEO: Google indexes Pinterest and can help your SEO greatly.

Pinterest is still new, so some of the disadvantages may be fixed soon. But for now, here are the disadvantages:

1) You can't schedule posts ahead of time: Pinterest does not have an internal scheduling system like Facebook. There are some early developed third party applications that let you "pre-pin", but I have yet to have the time to try to use it.
2) It's easy to create a "flood" in the stream of pins: A flood is created when you pin onto the same board many times over; this give the user a "flood" of pins from that board. This will often cause the user to skip over the entire bunch of pins.
3) It's a little difficult to get users to follow your brand: Pinterest is on the newer side as far as social media goes, so some users are still unfamiliar with the platform. Following company pages and brands is even newer. An added challenge is balancing promotional content with content users are interested in.
4) Watch out for copyright infringement and spam: Sometimes users pin things that they are not supposed to. Always click on the pin and see where it goes to make sure it is what the pin says it is!

Pinterest is new but it is growing quickly! Grab your business name as soon as you can and pin away.

Have you began a business Pinterest page? What do you like to pin for your business?

Until next time!
~Melissa

Social Media for Businesses Part 2: Facebook for Business

I am completing a three-part series on social media platforms for businesses with one blog for Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. Welcome to Part 2!

I will be highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of using Facebook based on my own experience; I do social media marketing for almost ten different companies, so I'll be sure to take the best of the best advice to pass on to you!

I'll start with the advantages that Facebook has for businesses:

1) It's easy to use: Facebook works hard to be user friendly; easy to post, easy to see your analytics, and easy to keep track of customer engagement. They also make business pages similar in format to personal pages so it will seem extra familiar to the regular Facebook user.

2) There is a large number of active users: According to Facebook's website, they have more than a billion monthly active users and 618 million daily active users (as of December 2012). This is a huge market to tap into and you don't want to miss out on it!

3) You can schedule content directly through Facebook: Facebook allows you to schedule posts directly through your business page. It lets you schedule posts up to five months out; posts can have links, pictures, videos, and text built right into them.

4) There are analytics built in: Facebook is constantly changing and updating their internal analytics to give you the best view of your business page as possible. It's very easy to see what kind of content or post does well and which does not.

5) It gives customers multiple ways to interact with you: People that like your page can send you messages, write on your wall, write recommendations, like your posts, share your posts, and comment on your posts. This is a large part of building your brand and gives customers an option of how they want to interact with you.

No social media platform is perfect though! Here are some disadvantages of Facebook for businesses:

1) It's difficult to gain and retain "likes" when first starting: Just like with any business as it starts out, a business facebook struggles to gain "likes" when first beginning (*without the use of promoted posts). A new facebook page will struggle with engagement and interaction as not all of your "likes" will see your posts. Once you gain a larger number of followers, you should see a steady increase of approximately 2-7% new "likes" per month (at least this is my experience).

2) It takes time and hard work to do it right: Although Facebook is free, you have to take into account time and effort spent into growing your Facebook "likes". On top of that, you must learn the difference between running a personal account and a business account.

3) Facebook limits who sees your posts: Not all of your "likes" will see every post. Most of my posts see an average of 30-70% of my total "likes" (Of course some get less and some get more). If you pay attention, you'll notice that Facebook limits certain types of posts (like pictures and certain links) to even fewer of your "likes".

4) Facebook lumps third party posts together and identifies where you post from: Yes you can schedule through Facebook directly, but in addition to that, you can post from many third party applications. These are convenient but can hurt the reach on your posts. Facebook may lump your posts together, may limit who sees posts from certain applications, and also identifies where you are posting from (i.e. Hootsuite, Gremln).

Even with its ups and downs, your business must have a Facebook page. With so many users waiting for you, you must not miss out! You have to use and manage it, but it can do wonders for building your brand and serving as a communication tool for your current and potential customers.

Does your business have a Facebook account? What are your favorite and least favorite aspects?

~Melissa

"Move fast and break things. If you aren't breaking things you aren't moving fast enough."

             ~Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook

See Part 1: Twitter for Business here

Part 3 coming soon: Pinterest for Business

Social Media for Businesses Part 1: Twitter For Business

I will be doing a three-part series on social media platforms for businesses with one blog for Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. Welcome to Part 1!

I will be highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of using Twitter based on my own experience; I do social media marketing for almost ten different companies, so I'll be sure to take the best of the best advice to pass on to you!

I'll start with the advantages that Twitter has for businesses:

1) It's easy to gain followers: In my own experience, I see an average month to month growth of  Twitter followers between +5-20% for the business Twitter accounts. It's easy to gain followers because (usually) when you follow people, they'll follow you back! 

2) Twitter doesn't block your content: Twitter will post everything that you ask it to-whether it's 2 tweets per day or 200. Other social media platforms limit who sees your content based on what they want their users to see.

3) Twitter doesn't block third party post-scheduling apps: Twitter will allow you to post from any third party application (Such as HootSuite and Gremln); it will not block content, nor will it identify where the post is coming from. 

4) It makes you think about what you are going to say: Because tweets are limited to 140 characters, you really are forced to think about what you'll say and how you'll say it best. Messages must be concise and straight to the point-you don't risk boring your followers!

5) Following a brand on Twitter increases likelihood to purchase as well as recommend a brand: According to eMarketer, 37% of respondents are more likely to purchase from a brand after following them on Twitter (this is compared to only 17% that say the same about a brand they like on Facebook). Numbers are about the same when asked if they would recommend a brand.

6) Hashtags make it easy to use Twitter like Google: When using hashtags in tweets, you are making it easier for users to find your content. They can use the search bar to look for words like "marketing" or "twitter" and Twitter will pull up every tweet that has mentioned this word via hashtag for the past forever. This is an added way that new followers can find you and discover your content quickly and easily.

Of course, no social media platform is perfect. Here are what I would call disadvantages about using Twitter for businesses:

1) The half-life of a tweet is only two to three hours: Not only do you have to provide excellent and engaging content all the time; you must be careful about when you post your tweets! After just a few hours, the odds of a user seeing a tweet are minimal. It also means you need to post quite a few times each day to get your content in front of your followers.

2) It's really hard to respond to complaints in a small amount of characters: If a customer provides a long and confusing tweet complaint, you may have to tweet back and forth several times to ask all of the questions you need to. The character limit may also make your tweets sound cold or "canned", which may upset the user further.

3) Customers expect an instant response: Because Twitter is such an instant platform (many users use it as an instant news source), customers have very high expectations of response rates. I've had a user tweet back within just a few hours that they were disappointed that I "never" got back to them. This can, however, be turned into a positive if you have a great social media manager that is on top of responding to tweets coming in.

4) There aren't any analytics built in to Twitter: Yes, there are third party programs that will create analytics for you, but you have to find which one will work for you. Other social media platforms offer analytics for managers within the platform itself for extra convenience.

5) The larger your follower number becomes, the more difficult it is to manage: This is a good problem to have-people like to hear what you have to say-but it makes responding to questions and tweets that come in extremely difficult. This can make engaging with your customers via Twitter tricky.

I believe that no matter how large or how small your business is, you should have a Twitter account! Yes it does take work to do it right, but it can be a great platform to expand the reach of your business and communicate your message with your customers.

Does your business have a Twitter account? What are the advantages and disadvantages you've run into?

See you for Part 2 and Part 3!

~Melissa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MOpitzMarketing

“Twitter represents a collective collaboration that manifests our ability to unconsciously connect kindred voices through the experiences that move us. As such, Twitter is a human seismograph.” – Brian Solis, Principal of FutureWorks