Category Archives for "Dickiebird Marketing News"

0 How Small Businesses Can Find Their Hottest Prospects With Mailchimp Email

Hopefully you’ve read my previous post ‘Dickiebird Hot Tip: A Quick Email Follow Up Technique That Could Land Your Next Big Client’ – otherwise you might find this piece a little too practical.

Here are the practical steps about how to dig into your Mailchimp email list and find your hottest prospects.

Step One

Send your email via Mailchimp – make sure it’s a good one that’s useful and interesting and one that prospects will open. If you haven’t got time to put together a decent email, get in touch and we’ll put you in touch with people who do a great job.

Step Two

You’ll need to check Mailchimp every day after you sent the email to see who’s opening and clicking on your emails. Chances are, it will be a prospect you haven’t heard from for some time.

Action > Check Mailchimp every day

Step Three

By default, Mailchimp opens to your dashboard and looks like the image below.

Action > Click on the blue subscriber number

 
 
Step Four

The screen below will come up. By default it shows you the readers who opened your email the least amount of times.

Action > Click twice on the ‘Opens’ tab at the top of the list

Step Five

Now you have a list of prospective customers who have opened your email the most. You can see the person at the top has opened the email 42 times! The others have opened it at least 10 times.

Step Six

Create an individual follow-up email to your hot prospects in your regular email provider (not Mailchimp and not a group email). This may well open the door to new business. I wouldn’t suggest you start your follow-up with “I see that you opened our email 42 times, clicked three links and forwarded it to 2 people”.

In your follow-up, try something more subtle, such as an email to say “Hi Joan, it looks like you got our latest email about swimming pool fitness. As we haven’t been in touch for a while, have you got any questions about your pool or landscaping project”? We’re only an email away, so please call or email if we can help in any way”. Make sure you have your phone contact details at the bottom of your email.

Action > Send individual email to your people with the most opens

The Fortune Is In The Follow-Up

If your product or service is high value eg. over $2,000 per customer per year, that simple follow-up might net your business $5,000 plus.

In my experience, it’s something worth trying, and at worst, you’re providing customers with more personalised communication – it’s a simple courtesy that most businesses overlook.  

The manual email follow-up method might not be cost effective for everyone – for example, if your product or service is only worth $50 per year. In this case, if you have Marketing Automation in place, you can create a simple rule that follows up with an email like the one above.

You can read more about Marketing Automation in my previous post. Otherwise, get in touch with any questions about setting up professional Marketing Automation for your professional service or software business.

I’d love to know if you’ve tried follow-up email or automation. Let me know about your experiences, successful or otherwise.

0 How Google’s Latest Changes Affects Your Business and What you Need to do

Google Page One new view

Have you noticed Google’s latest change to local business search results?

It’s a big shift, and whether or not you noticed it, Google’s recent changes to page one search results have an impact on brick and mortar New Zealand businesses.

“Unless you’ve been living in a shoebox, you’ll know that the upper half of Page 1 of Google is where you want your business to appear in a Google search”.

Research consistently shows that 80% of people don’t bother with Page 2 results. That’s not so surprising, but what’s important is that most people don’t even bother scrolling any further down the top half of page 1.

The advertising gurus call this prime real estate ‘above the fold’, or being in the top half of the page and being above the fold means one thing: your business will get more inquiries.

For example, in the good old days (September 2014), if I was to search ‘Nelson Accountant’, these are the results I would get above the fold:

Google Search results for ‘Accountant’ in the ‘good old days’ (Sep 2014).

However, if I search for ‘Accountant Nelson’ now (October 2015), this is what I get:

Google Search results for Accountant currently (November 2015).

“Organic ( meaning ‘free’) results have disappeared from the top half of page one, and this has major implications for getting found at the top of page one of Google (above the fold)”.

What’s the difference and how does this affect your business?

You may notice the complete absence of organic listings above the fold. The old method of getting your business found organically -as in using traditional keywords and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has nearly disappeared with Google’s recent change.

“The short answer is: If you’re in a highly competitive industry, you’ll need to pay for a prime position using Google Adwords.”

For other ways to get higher in search results, read on…
You can still see organic results if you scroll down the page, but research shows that most people don’t bother scrolling below the fold.

“There are things you can do to improve the chance for your business to be found on Page 1 of Google, without paying for advertising.”  

Google’s game changer means that people searching for your business not only see the Adword (paid) listings at the top of the page, but they also see the free Google business listings.

“Having an up-to-date and accurate business Google+ listing is more important than ever before.”

Below is how your basic Google+ listing should look:

A Google+ listing with notes in red: Note the review – reviews not only build trust, they may also help your business \ rank higher on Page One of Google Search.

How to get better results on Page One of Google Search

Looking beyond the obvious (the increasing need to seriously consider paid advertising for your product or service), your business needs a Google+ listing with up-to-date details. Not only that, you need your Google+ listing to show up on the map, and preferably at the top of page 1.

How do I claim my Google+ listing?

An example of the Dickiebird Google+ listing

Step One

Try searching your business name with G+ at the end of it. For example: ‘Dickiebird G+’. If you haven’t claimed it, it will say ‘claim this business’. Go ahead and click that button.

Step Two

You’ll need to verify your address. This means updating your address in the listing, and Google will send you a verification code in the post (yes, Google do use snail mail).

Step Three

To rank higher in Google Search you’ll need to update your Google+ listing: Google’s ranking methods are a well-kept secret. There’s no definitive guide, but I’ll share what seems to help:

1. The sooner you get your listing up, the more chance you have of ranking.  I’ve observed that age is an important determinant on how well your listing ranks.
2. Get some images in your Google+ listing. Don’t go with the ugly default image Google have taken of the outside of your building. Put some effort into your page and you’ll be rewarded.
3. Get reviews for your business. You can ask customers / clients to do this. Otherwise, consider an automated review tool like www.smallbusinessamplifier.co.nz
4. Link your Google+ listing to your business website.

For an extensive guide on how to set up a business Google+ page, have a look at this free guide (external link).

Google+ puts your business on the map

Let’s summarise what these latest changes to Google mean to local businesses:

1. Consider Google Ads: Google advertising is becoming increasingly important if you’re in a competitive industry and want to be found for key products and services.
2. Claim your Google+ listing: To show up on page one, you’ll need to claim your business Google+ listing.
3. Get your Google+ listing address verified: Put some effort into images and linking to your website.
4. Consider getting reviews for your business: Not only will reviews that help your listing get found, but they tell customers you care about their feedback.

Making some of these changes will mean your business gets found more easily in Google search. That, in turn, will mean that your business gets more leads / inquiries. There is of course more to learn about creating websites that actually get inquiries (high converting websites), but I will cover that in another post. In the meantime, please share this post with your friends and colleagues in business. It’s an important change and one that’s all too often missed or ignore at the peril of small businesses that need to know how to get found online.

I would love to know how you get on– please leave a comment in the section below.