Can people find you on social media?
So you’ve set up your Facebook page and a twitter account and told everyone to ‘find you on facebook’, but can they?
Facebook is becoming more and more intelligent and seems to suggest people or pages you are searching for by relevance to your network. However if you are hoping to be found by clients who appear to have little in common with your business they may struggle to find you whilst searching Facebook.
To make life easy for your clients and better for you, make sure you personalise your page URL and specify that on your marketing literature. Asking potential customers to Find us on Facebook or follow us on twitter without telling them exactly where to find you means at best they can’t find you and give up or at worst find your competitor’s page.
This poster is a good example of giving your social media addresses out in the same way you’d specify your web address.
Save Time And Use a Dashboard For Social Media
This is just a brief post to give you a top tip on how you can do a bundle of your social media marketing at once and then roll it out over a period of time.
If you sign up to a dashboard such as www.hootsuite.com you can spend a period of time creating facebook updates and tweets and then schedule them to go out when you want (once a day on your fan page, a series of tweets over the whole, three times a week). You don’t have to be there to send out each tweet or update at any given moment.
Even if you want to send out information in real time, using a dashboard allows you to see all your social networks in one go and saves having to log into each site separately.
Of course social media is meant to be ‘social’ so you will need to be able to respond to comments and keep the conversation going, rather batching everything once a week and never going back to check what people are responding with. However planning your topics at once and then just logging in to respond saves time. You can always appoint other people to be admins of your pages to keep the conversation going if you prefer.
Two dashboards with free options are:
www.hootsuite.com (better for facebook although I also use it for twitter)
www.socialoomph.com (better for twitter)
How Volunteering for a Charity Could Boost Your Business
I have recently started volunteering for the National Childbirth Trust (NCT). I was approached to see if I would help out with any of the local roles available. I felt that I couldn’t manage a weekly commitment such as running a bumps and babies group, but I thought I would probably enjoy the newsletter editor position. At the annual members’ meeting shortly after I also found myself volunteered as the person for parents to contact if they want to know about events happening in the area.
Of course if any parent contacts me through the NCT I have to promote any events and activities the NCT have running but I am also able to tell them about events, groups and courses that are being run by other businesses which they may be interested in. This is a great way to ensure that any parent who calls for information gets my class details and also those of the birth network I run locally. It’s piggybacking off the NCTs name in a way that benefits the parents but also raises awareness of my and lots of other local businesses.
If you don’t particularly enjoy marketing then volunteering at a baby group or similar could be a good way to do this to a constant flow of new parents. Obviously you’d probably want to avoid doing a formal presentation on a weekly basis! However the natural flow of conversation would come round to what you do for a living or the rest of the time when your not at the group. That’s s good way to mention your classes/services/products and if they’re relevant to the group in front if you, they’ll be interested in asking questions and knowing more.
Over time as people get to know you they will likely remember what you do and either buy from you themselves or recommend you to others if someone asks if they know anyone who offers what you do.
It’s not a hard sell but remember the more people who know what you do, the more business that will come your way.
Things to consider before offering your service on a daily deal site
There’s divided opinion about using daily deal sites like Groupon and Living Social to market your business.
It seems like nearly every day there is an offer for a beauty treatment/therapy or hairdresser. I personally feel that you need to think long and hard about whether these sites offer a good proposition to businesses running deals with them if the business offers a mainstream treatment.
Things to consider:
- How likely are you to actually be building your list?
- Are clients genuinely likely to turn into repeat business or will they just go back on to the deal site for the next great deal. Not everyone will become repeat business so are you still making a profit on the treatment they are having?
- How many bookings can you cope with?
I felt that because I was offering a niche service it was worth experimenting to see what happened. As it was unlikely there would be a similar offer within a short period of time, I felt confident that clients taking the deal would also book into other services I offer.
Benefits of working with a deal site:
- no upfront costs/no marketing layout
- generation of a number of potential new clients
- exposure to thousands of local people/families who may not buy the current deal but have had a marketing ‘hit’ from your brand and may feel more inclined to trust a familiar brand if they are looking for your service in the future
My experience
I recently ran a deal with Living Social offering the choice of either a pregnancy massage or a baby massage course.
- 14 people took up the offer, not a massive number but enough for it to be worthwhile and few enough for my services levels not to be affected.
- The ratio was that there was far more uptake for baby class than pregnancy massage. The pregnancy massage wasn’t quite a loss leader but there was only a tiny profit. However as my pregnancy clients become my baby clients it was worth investing the time to do this as they are likely to attend a baby massage and then a baby yoga course with me.
- My brand and was delivered to several thousand local people in a specific ‘family’ section of the site so much more targeted audience.
I need to wait and see how the clients convert but I predict the vast majority will bring repeat business and some will refer friends to my courses too.
Why You Need Additional Services Or Products to Boost Sales
If you just offer one service in your business, you are leaving a lot of money on the table.
Clients who buy from you, like you and trust you and would be more likely to buy from you again if you offered something they wanted or needed. If you work with a niche group (such as pregnant mums or babies) where there is a high turn-over of clients it’s essential that you try and get the most spend out of those clients over the period they are with you.
Obviously I am not talking about bleeding people dry of every penny they have for services they are not interested in! I am talking about offering products or services your clients are likely to buy or use anyway but from another business if you don’t offer them. It means you can also help extend the amount of time people are clients with you (and therefore the amount they pay you).
Examples:
- If you run baby classes, consider also offering a pregnancy class. This will offer a flow of people into your baby classes. If you are not qualified to offer anything in pregnancy, consider hiring someone else to teach the class for you. This works vice-versa if you currently only offer something for pregnancy.
- If you teach baby massage qualify in baby yoga too.
- Offer a mainstream service. If people come to you during pregnancy, consider offering a mainstream class or treatment they could carry on with after they are no longer eligible for your niche service.
- Stock a product that many of your clients use. Something like real nappies, teething necklaces or slings.
- Hire out a tens machine or birthpool in a box kit.
- If you use props or equipment in your sessions, offer them for sale in your classes or on your website.
- Sell clothing, a DVD , booklet for similar to accompany your course.
There are lots of ways to make additional revenue from ‘back end’ products. Often the main service your clients pays for covers your costs and then the ‘extras’ are all profit. Have a think about what else you could offer in 2012.
Using Referrals to Boost Your Word of Mouth Sales
One of the Christmas cards I received this year was from one of the graphic designers I use. In it there was a little parcel wrapped up and a note to say that as a thank you for referring another business I was being sent a £10 gift card. I assumed that it was to use with them for my next design work but when I opened the wrapping, the card was to spend at Debenhams. I have to say it made my day, especially as I was able to buy the PERFECT purse that I’ve been searching for, for months!
My Fabulous New Purse
It made me think about what referral process you might have in place for your business and what the benefits are.
Referrals are word of mouth recommendations and probably make up quite a few of the new leads of customers your business gets. I think in our industry word of mouth is an even bigger source of clients than in many others as if people are trusting us with their body or their baby, they like to have done kind of assurance from someone they know.
Regardless as to whether you offer any kind of thank you to clients who refer clients, you should definitely consider a way to ask for referrals. If you find that a particular method of marketing your business is working, then do more of it. Having a referral procedure is just a way of boosting your word of mouth business.
When To Ask For Referrals
Think about the best time to do this. One of my clients recently came for her first pregnancy massage and at the end she said that was the most relaxed she had ever felt in her life.
Do you think that might be a good time to ask if she knows anyone else who would benefit from feeling like that? If you feel nervous asking for business, adding a section to the bottom of your booking forms could be an easier way to ask clients to recommend a friend.
Just ask them to put the names and contact details of up to three (three’s the magic number) friends or family members who would benefit from what you offer. You can write a brief note to reassure your client you will get in contact with these people but not bombard them with marketing if they aren’t interested.
Alternatively if you ask clients to complete a feedback form after using your service, you could call or email then. Get in touch to say that since they enjoyed your class/course/service would they like to recommend anyone else.
What To Offer
You might like to offer a thank you or have a tiered scheme. For example a pre/postnatal fitness expert I know gives her clients their course at a discounted price if they refer a friend who also signs up.
You may want to offer monetary vouchers to spend with you, give a product like a massage oil, offer a product/service/voucher for another business which compliments yours (referring business to them) or something unrelated like a shop gift card.
If you have clients on a longer term basis you may also want to do a tiered system eg refer one person get one gift, refer two people get a different higher priced gift and so on.
Buddy Up With Another Business
If you are on a budget it’s great to give something that costs time (like a free treatment) or is provided by someone else, rather than costing your money eg a product. Ask other local businesses if they would like to offer something that would be of value to your clients as it also introduces them to new business.
Don’t forget that more than likely your clients won’t expect anything from you. Whilst it’s lovely to surprise your clients and show appreciation, most of them will be more than happy to recommend you for free. If they have enjoyed what you offer and benefitted from an excellent service, they are likely to want to help you grow your business anyway. Just ask!
It costs nothing to say thank you and some recognition for referees in your client newsletter could be a nice free way of saying thank you.
Asking for referrals can be a really easy, free and quick way of getting a constant stream of new leads and customers. It’s always good to build on your relationships with your clients too and referrals can do not only this but can help you build relationships with other local businesses and help generate income from referrals for them too.
10 at 10
Ok it’s 10am, let’s take ten minutes to do some marketing!
Have you listed your classes on netmums.com? If not head there now and find your local site(s). Click on the Local To You tab after you have created a free account.
Choose Preschool Classes and then find the most relevant category for your class. Click through to the listings and press the ‘add a listing’ button on the top right hand side. Fill in the form with all your details and some information about your sessions. Not only do you now have a presence on there, you also have a powerful site linking to your website.
Copy and paste the info and create an ad on gumtree.com (again for your local area(s)) under community classes.
Done!
