Tag Archives: training
Sky AdSmart Seminar
In late March we hosted a Seminar for businesses to learn more about Sky AdSmart – a highly targeted, super-local and low cost route into TV advertising and we are partnering with Sky TV to show how working with razor sharp creative talent and the latest technology from Sky Adsmart can inspire your next generation of customers.
So what is Sky AdSmart?
Advertisers are able to cherry-pick their audiences using thousands of combinations from age, location or life style. All this means the power of TV can now be used to greater effect by existing advertisers, whilst becoming accessible for the first time to niche brands, small & medium-sized businesses (SMEs) and location-specific advertisers.
Why Gleave Media?
We work with aspirational businesses that aim for growth and bring a wealth of experience and analysis for all digital strategies and we deliver right first time solutions, often within short and challenging timescales.
So if you want to have a no obligation chat about how your business can realise its business goals, please get in touch today on 01392 241653 or contact us through our website here, we’d be delighted to have a no obligation chat to see if we can help your business grow.
CRM to Create Crowdsourced Process Improvements
A well planned customer relationship management or CRM system can be a great differentiator for your growing business. If you have the ability early on to capture important information about the type of customers you have, their buying habits and interests and the ability to analyze and synthesize this information to your benefit, you have the ability to not only maintain powerful, long-lasting customer relationships, you also have the ability to grow your business exponentially through referrals and repeat business.
According to a study published in Forbes magazine, a fully implemented CRM in a business such as yours has the potential to grow sales by 29%. The CRM can be a powerful tool to help you reach the pinnacle success in the type of business you are engaged. One of the ways your CRM provides a tremendous value to you, particularly as you start out, is through crowdsourcing your customers for feedback on your business processes. Soliciting customer feedback and participation in evaluating how you do business allows you to improve your business and strengthen their loyalty and commitment to the products and services you offer.
The Importance of Crowdsourced Process Improvements
Your CRM is a hub for managing customer information and interaction. If you think beyond a myopic use of the CRM as a data gathering tool and broaden its reach to include email, social media and other forms of dialogue and communication, you have in hand a powerful tool for developing a better customer profile and managing expectations. Information that is gathered through the CRM is captured in real time and represents a way to capture instant feedback relative to the way you do business and how your employees meet and manage the needs of your vital asset.
Crowdsourcing involves the inclusion of all aspects of your business and the sales cycles, from customer service representatives to management to the sales team to the very customers themselves. Feedback elicited from the feedback can be fed to the different functions within your business to better understand:
- What went right with the sale/transaction?
- What areas of improvement are present?
- Is this customer more likely or less likely to continue a business relationship with us?
Harnessing the power of the CRM to engage the customer is an important way to derive tremendous value from your system, we help many businesses do just that. For a no obligation conversation then please call us on 01392 241653 or contact us through the website here.
What is Beyond CRM for My Company?
The customer relationship management system or CRM is a powerful tool for managing all aspects of the customer experience. As a business concern starting out, one of the most important investments that you can make is in a CRM system capable of managing customer profiles, determining how best the business delivers on its promises and rewarding customer loyalty for continued support and advocacy in terms of referrals and additional business.
The CRM however is not the end all to be all with respect to your management of the customer relationship. The information contained within the CRM is useless if not used in an effective way for you to make process improvements or deliver on the expectations that your customers have of you and the business. Here is a look at what is beyond the CRM and what you should do to better manage information and make it work to your advantage as a new or emerging business owner.
What should a CRM Should Drive My Business to Do
CRMs represent a dynamic tool that can integrate various functions and processes within the business. This integration allows different departments and disciplines to communicate with one another and provide support to customers, the critical lifeblood of any organization. Through the full utilization of the CRM and all its functions, both as a data mining tool and as a interactive communication hub, you can develop a way to involve, engage and fully meet the needs of your customer. This helps distinguish you from our competitors and put you in position to grow at a potential unseen.
Understand that CRM relates to an aspect of the customer relationship but does not take place of the physical aspect of the customer experience. If you do not follow-up on the information being provided to you, whether it is an answer to an inquiry by a customer, a request for information, a follow-up call on a complaint, etc. you miss an opportunity to meet the expectations of the customer. Such a missed opportunity could prove a detriment to you down the road, particularly if you are a business who depends on its reputation and word of mouth as an aspect of your marketing and outreach. The more you humanize the customer experience beyond the CRM, the better you will be at retaining long lasting customer relationships.
Sharing content on Instagram for your business
Instagram is the perfect social media platform to inspire people with images that tell a business’ story. The visual aspect of Instagram uses the power of simple imagery to get the message out to current and potential customers, while humanizing and showcasing the company. With over 400 million active users that share 80 million photos every day, those photos garner more than 3.5 billion likes per day and awesome comments, lots of sharing and engagement as well. This is a community that is very passionate and upbeat; sharing content on Instagram spurs interaction between businesses and customers, establishes trust and solidly brands a business to allow them to magnify their message cost-effectively. And you thought Instagram was nothing but selfies!
What (and how) to post on Instagram
Though that first post might be intimidating, you will quickly become a pro and look forward to posting on this fun and dynamic social media site. Here are a couple of ideas to inspire you:
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Behind the scenes at your company: Funky and authentic, these really personalize your business. Describe what’s going on, and be sure to add relevant industry hashtags and funny ones, too. Hashtag ideas: #beforecoffee #meetingsarefun #hardatwork
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Selfies: These are everywhere, but we don’t mean a picture of you in the bathroom mirror with your best pout. How about grabbing a selfie of the creative group at lunch, or brainstorming a new Instagram campaign? Hashtag ideas: #teamatwork #bondingtime
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Quotes: Share inspirational or funny quotes for strong engagement and sharing. Even better if you pair it up with an image to match. Lots of apps are available to do this; some favorites are WordSwag, Phonto, Font Candy and Typic. Hashtag ideas: #quote #quotes
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Memes: Funny and irreverent, but so memorable and shareable! Sprinkle memes throughout your account for a lighthearted feel. Use meme generators to create custom memes for your business in minutes. Hashtag ideas: #memes #funny #pleaseshare
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Newsjacking: Positive posts about things going on in the world, but tread lightly so you don’t offend people. Donald Trump’s hair? Fair game. His ideas about immigration? Steer clear. Hashtag ideas: #newstoday #whatshappening
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Content promotion: Use a great image and caption to promote your recent blog posts, and ask people to follow your bio link to read it. Hashtag ideas: #readthis #ourblog
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Product or service promotion: Do this sparingly or you will turn off your audience; but showcase your company products or services occasionally using the 90/10 rule–90 percent of what you post should be valuable to your followers and 10 percent can be self-promotional. Of course, it is Instagram, so make your promo content fun and compelling for best results! Hashtag ideas: #ourproductinaction #checkoutournewest
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Reposts from followers: There is no better way to get someone’s attention on Instagram than to curate and repost their images; this is the ultimate form of IG flattery. Be sure to @tag them, so they know you did it and gave them credit. Hashtags: #repost #coolstuffwefind
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Action requests: Ask your followers to tag their friends when you post a funny meme, or request that they follow you on Twitter or Facebook. Broaden your reach with these requests. Hashtags: #tagyourbff #followusonFB #doyoutweet
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Videos and GIFS: You can post short videos on Instagram and make them funny or functional. Either way, it is another way to increase engagement. Hint: people love babies and animals, so if you can somehow relate either to your business, you are golden! Hashtags: #howwedoit #playfulpuppies
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Throwback Thursday: Save your vintage images for Thursday and give everyone a peek into your past. Hashtags: #TBT #throwbackThursday
Businesses of all sizes, from really small companies to major household names, are successfully using Instagram to drive ad recall, engagement and customers! These ideas will get you started, but you will quickly find lots more inspiration for posts. Remember, make people laugh and they will double tap and like your post, probably leave a nice comment and follow you. It takes time to build engagement and trust, but post on Instagram regularly and you will see much more of both.
Now the sales bit, we’ve been training businesses large and small how to get the best out of their social media activity for many years, indeed we run over 20 social media seminar with our sister business GrowMyCharity.com. If you think your business could do we help getting your social media engagement focused then please contact us through the website here for a no obligation chat or call us on 01392 241653.
The Importance of Small Business sales automation
A customer relationship management (CRM) system is a powerful business tool. It is as important an investment for small businesses as it is for larger business organizations. As you become more dependent on data and its use in your business through changing technology, you find yourself at a competitive disadvantage when you choose not to integrate a small business sales automation system or CRM into your everyday business.
CRMs systems have advanced beyond appointment scheduling tools into providing your business with total small business sales automation to be able to generate opportunities for new and additional leads for your business. If you have not considered the purchase of a CRM system, here is some information further defining CRMs and their role in transforming your business.
Delivering Superior Customer Service Seen as Key Challenge to Business
Delivering the highest quality customer service is the highest priority for any business. It is a differentiator that separates those businesses on the fast track to growth and profitability and those struggling to survive or in decline. Chief Information Officers are increasingly investing in CRMs as a way to delivery on their customer service promise. A 2012 Forrester’s fourth quarter survey found that although less than half (47%) of companies in North America and Europe have implemented a CRM solution, spending increased 12.5% between 2011 and 2012 ($18 billion versus $16 billion).
Download your free brochure hereHow CRMs Become Important to Your Business
The use of CRMs become an important tool needed by small business to best deliver top service to customers. The essential elements of a CRM system include the ability to direct online marketing campaigns to existing customers, process online orders, complete order fulfilment and provide ongoing customer support. Ancillary functions include procuring sales leads through an online referral program, administration of customer satisfaction surveys and similar data driven processes.
Your CRM system does not remove the human element from the sales cycle and customer retention process. It gives you a powerful tool to harness data and become more efficient at maintaining these important customer relationships, making sales and making more sales.
We operate a small business sales automation for aspirational businesses click here to download the free brochure or contact us through the website here to arrange a free trial.
Why put a human face on your business?
In 2016 developing your business is greatly helped by building personal relationships and engaging with your customers and prospects as this will help your business develop brand loyalty and a greater sense of trust. It then follows that people are more likely to trust your business if they know that real people work there, so how do you do that, these are are top tips to put a human face on your business.
1. Use genuine pictures of your team with bios where appropriate.
2. Why not conduct an interview with the MD or a key member of staff.
3. Collate and share images of your products and services that customers have shared with you.
4. Positive feedback from customers and people you work with is always good to share.
5. Why not include a thank you for something that a customer has done for you – could this be a long standing award.
6. Include any charity work any staff member has done, run a marathon for example.
So there you have it just a few examples of how you could put a human face on your business and so develop the trust in how your business is seen by your customers and prospects. How you get this out in front of your customers can be by things like blog posts or email marketing or maybe your audience is of a different demographic so Tumblr or Shapchat is more appropriate?
Whatever this is we can help identify and help your business reach its customers so you can concentrate on managing and growing your increasing enquiry levels, to find out more please contact the team either through the website here or call us on 01392 241653.
Five top tips for engaging your facebook fans
Following the recent facebook marketing seminar at Exeter Rugby Club we thought that it would be good to share our five top tips for engaging your facebook fans.
Firstly with over 1 billion users and growing your business has a massive marketing opportunity on Facebook, one that numerous companies are taking full advantage of. Being on facebook is not enough though, you need to be using it effectively and making time to curate your community. So the question is how? well here are our five top tips for engaging your facebook fans;
1. Be YOU
Social Media is incredibly transparent so dont try to be something you aren’t as you will be found out. By all means be professional, be funny let your personality and the personality of the business come through in updates you make and if posting updates is someone in your offices job then tell your audience that – dont hide, Becky from XYZ Parts sounds loads better then XYZ Parts dont you think?
2. Try to include images where possible
An images tells a thousand words so the quote goes, so wherever possible include an image in any updates and make sure its relevant to the update, from our research image based updates do gain a better response rate and surely this is what any business is after.
3. Keep getting LIKES
Once you have built your acceptable level of LIKEs to your facebook page, dont stop, keep going (while you’re at it hop over to Facebook.com/gleavemedia and LIKE our page) import email lists and ask for LIKES, include your facebook link in any email outs and your email signature, give people a reason to LIKE you as people who know your business are far more likely to engage with you.
4. Post compelling content
This surely is a no brannier, post content that is genuinely interesting and your users will want to engage with, be fun even linking to topical and funny videos – remember Peter Kay talking about Biscuits, how is your office coffee?
5. DONT SELL
Their is nothing worse than visiting a facebook page that just wants to sell sell sell, this is an instant turn off if it helps do you remember the safe style TV advert? DONT DO THIS!
Your facebook page needs to be about engagement nobody likes to be sold at constantly, is this all you do?
So here you have it our five top tips for engaging on Facebook, what do you recommend works for your business? Please use the comments to share..
Social Media Training for the Institute of Fundraising
Our last event of 2012 was speaking at the South West Institute of Fundraising Conference held at Exeter Chiefs Stadium, Sandy Park on the outskirts of Exeter.
This all day conference featured numerous high quality sessions include case studies of best practice from local charities through to nationally recognised speakers such as Amanda Pearson from Alzheimers Society on Legacies and Jhumar Johnson from Kingston Smith on the secrets Major Donor Fundraising.
Our well attended session was on Facebook from flop to fantastic, it was a lively session with lots of charity fundraisers who we batted the topic of facebook back and forth to see how it worked best in their organisation, sharing best practices and top tips to build and manage an awesome facebook page – surely a must for everyone, not just charitable organisations?
This concludes numerous events and seminars we have presented across the South West this year and if you want to know where we will be for both our free and paid events next year, please add your details onto the list below;
[cm_ajax_subscribe id=0]Also you can see more image and keep up to date simply by joining our facebook page here – www.facebook.com/gleavemedia
Social Media for Business
Social media is not just about technology, whether you have the latest iPhone or Google Gingerbread on your phone! It is about building relationships and conversations with your customers and brand advocates, widening the audience for your message. We have been immersed in the Internet since 1999 and we bring this experience to bear with all the customers we work with.
Every business is unique in the social media training challenges presented, you may already have some accounts and experience or a defined idea of what they want to achieve. Either way we believe in delivering bespoke training programs that will help solve the problems and issues you face. If you have previous experience of social media or are looking to get far more advanced you can rest assured that we’ll develop a workshop that is uniquely matched to your needs.
So how does the service we offer work and why should you use us?
The consultancy and training courses have been developed to help your business understand the theories behind and the upfront reality of social media as well as the best ways for you to get the right solution and way forward. This may be one on one training or a group of team members who need help and guidance establishing your company standing in this confusing area. We can help by working directly with your sales or marketing team as our training is tailored to your business and provides key help into the best way for integrating social media into your overall marketing and communication strategy
Check out our testimonials .
An idea of training areas that can be covered could be;
“Well done Gleave Media – you have proved yourselves to be a quality and reliable new media resource. You have a very ‘hands on’ approach to the intricate world of Online Marketing which is both necessary and appreciated. A real sense of support was offered when we didnt know our way through this modern minefield, please keep it up!”
Major South West Trade Product Supplier
To find out more details and a no obligation chat then please get in touch here.
eBay thoughts and predictions for 2012
So 2012 promises to be a great one for eBay if your business sells online then the chances are eBay should be a part of this strategy.
So our top five predictions for 2012 are;
1 – Top Rated Status
This is going to be even more important to have, you don’t necessarily need this UNLESS you want to power your sales forward. There is no doubt that Top Rated Status when achieved adds alot to your sales channel on eBay.
2 – Named Label Stores
We think eBay will continue to get more named label stores onto the site, they succeeded with Debenhams a while back and more will follow of that we are sure.
http://www.alistairgleave.co.uk/2009/10/debenhams-outlet-on-ebay-and-amazon/
3 – Second Hand
We have heard enough news reports about how people are cutting back and buying less, so why not offer them second hand, maybe you have new product that has been returned. You cant sell this as new BUT eBay gives a great market to sell as one owner?
4 – Amazon
I know this post is about eBay but you need to consider Amazon, it is getting more and more popular and you need to seriously consider this as a new sales channel.
and finally 5 – don’t forget mobile
Continued growth in mobile means you just cant forget how important catering for this market is – on ebay you cant do much about this, ebay makes the site mobile ready, just think about how you could bring it into your strategy.
So their you go our five predictions on eBay for 2012, if you business needs help with its ebay selling then why not get in touch now to see how we can really make a difference?
