Innovative marketing ideas for your business
2017 is well underway and I hope you've had a chance to set some time aside to work on your business, or at least plan when you're going to do this.
Below is an infographic with some  innovative marketing ideas for 2017. Note the ones that apply to you in your marketing plan!

Till next week, Marijke

If you run a busy business, you can sometimes be overwhelmed by emails from customers, and may not have time to provide great service. Here are 6 tips that will help you automate a few things that will make your life easier and provide a better customer experience.

1. There’s nothing worse for a customer to not receive an answer to their email or question. But sometimes you’re just too busy and can’t get back to everyone immediately. The customer doesn’t care about this of course – they just want attention!
   If you get a LOT of emails, set up an automatic email response. It’s a bit like an ‘out of the office message’, but you write something like: Thanks for your message. We will get back to you within the next 2 hours. This way, at least the customer has heard something back from you.
   
   
2. Make it easy for customers to ask for help and contact you.
   First of all, ensure you have an automatic signature that has ALL YOUR CONTACT DETAILS. Your name, email, address, website and phone number. It’s amazing how many people don’t have this set up. You can set this up in your email software (eg Outlook, Gmail etc). Just look for ‘Signatures’.
   
   
3. Include a “contact us” or “directions” link to your website in every email to spare customers the task of locating it on your website.
   
   
4. Send appointment or booking reminders. To ensure people don’t forget their appointment with you – set up appointment or booking reminders. You can do this in Outlook Calendar (or similar systems) and many booking systems do this automatically. I even get them from my dentist and doctor!
   
   
5. Gauge customer satisfaction. Send out customer satisfaction surveys – you can use software such as www.surveymonkey.com or ask a simple: What did you particularly enjoy, what could we improve? The results can help you improve your customer experience.
   
   
6. Ask customers for referrals or reviews. A large part of your business will come through word of mouth. So having referrals or reviews on your website will add credibility to your business.
   Send your customers a link directly to your review page (on for example Tripadvisor.com, yelp.com etc) or ask them to write a referral for your website. Ensure you always put their name and where they are from. Even better, make a video or include a photo. Click here for some examples.

So, have a look what you can implement in your business to improve the customer experience and make your life easier!

Till next week,
Marijke

Two weeks ago, I posted the Top 2017 Marketing Trends. The most mentioned trend in posts about 2017 Marketing Trends is Video (see last week's article). The second largest trend is Content. This is not really a new trend as creating fresh content for your website has been an important factor for improving your website's SEO for years.

But it doesn't hurt talking about content for a bit. The easiest way to update your website and social media is visual content. Videos, stunning photos and infographics. Above is an example of an infographic. It's a great way to display content in a visual way. We are faced with so much information on a daily basis, that we've become a bit lazy when it comes to reading text. If information can be displayed in a more visual way, we are more likely to absorb it.

So, include updating your website and social media weekly in your marketing planning with information that is relevant and interesting to your audience.

Till next week, Marijke