I had an interesting experience in the weekend…

I had some time to kill so I stopped for a coffee at a neighbourhood bookshop-cum-cafe.

I sat down for my coffee (flat white, no sugar) and flipped open my Macbook Pro. At that point I noticed that bookshop had wi-fi, so I approached the counter to ask for the password.

The girl behind the counter said their policy was to only give out the password to customers who spend $10 or more, either at the cafe or the bookstore.

Trouble is, I just didn’t feel like any food and I wasn’t in book-buying mode.

I asked for a little flexibility but she stood firm: “store policy”.

So I wandered back to my seat and surveyed the 18 out of 20 seats empty seats, wondering how sane this particular store policy was.

Free wi-fi for customers is in fact one of their hidden weapons. If I know I can have a coffee there and check email, I’m likely to go there more often…maybe even become a “regular” (life time value).

I may even bring friends or business associates (become a centre of influence for them). And I’m likely to gradually deepen my relationship over time and buy a few impulse-purchase books (even if they’re a little more expensive than Amazon.com).

But nope. They had to be tight-assed about the wi-fi policy, which is narrowly focused on earning an extra $6.50 from the transaction at hand, but pissing me off in the process and motivating me to seek other alternatives.

When they go out of business, they’ll say it was Amazon.com and the big chains that did it. They’ll say it’s impossible for the little guy to survive in this world of globalisation.

But the real reason will be, they didn’t capitalise on their greatest assets (a sense of local community and a place to “hang out”) but instead had to go for a the extra few bucks on the initial sale.

Next time I want free wi-fi, I’ll just go to Starbucks.

What policies do you have in place that might be repelling customers?

A short while ago I attended Perry Marshall’s Ultra-Advanced Pay Per Click Marketing Seminar in Maui, Hawaii.

The price of admission was $5,000.

Plus flights and accommodation.

Plus a minimum requirement of $5,000/mo in Google AdWords spend in order to qualify to be in the room.

Was it worth it? You betcha. This is the type of advanced training that gives us – and our clients – an edge over competitors who are happy with being ‘good’ as opposed to ‘GREAT’.

7 years ago, I told subscribers, “you cannot afford NOT to be using AdWords. The ROI is phenomenal.”

We had customers whose marketing costs were a tiny 0.2% of sales. Zero-point-two percent!!

Fast-forward to today and the situation is very different. It’s no longer ‘money for jam’.

While many companies are doing VERY well from the Internet (some we are lucky enough to call our clients), you have to really WORK to get ahead and stay ahead of the pack.

There’s a big mass of companies who are marketing on the net and are “keeping the lights on”, but are certainly not making a killing.

Clicks are more expensive than ever. The organic search engines are more competitive….

It’s harder to get people to respond or sign up to receive information – even if you give it away…

Prospects want more value and proof “up front” before they’ll trust you with your business…

Yep, the water level is rising, and if you don’t stay ahead of the pack, you’ll drown.

In fact, I recently consulted with a business owner recently who had always done well out of Google AdWords, until the last little while. He wasn’t doing anything differently, and that was the problem.

While his web marketing stood still, the cost per click in his market quietly rose from $1 per click to $8 per click over a couple of years, and his account went from ‘profitable’ to ‘bleeding cash’. It was only at that point he realised something had to be done… and fast!

So the question I want to ask you is: what are you doing to stay ahead of the pack in your industry, and on the Internet?

I noticed that Marc Dussault recently posted a video to YouTube on how to speed read on screen using a very cool program called Rapid Reader.

What’s interesting is that quite unbeknownst (great word that, unbeknownst) to me, he mentioned Marketing Results and our URL in the video as the source of the tip. That video has now been viewed 38,787 times so far, meaning that (up to) 38,787 people have heard our name and URL as a result.

While I can’t track the type-in traffic that may have resulted directly, this does illustrate the potential worth of providing value to “Sneezers”, who then re-package or re-transmit those ideas to their audience.

Seth Godin asks in this post how much it costs to have someone be nice to you as a customer.

Affluent customers in particular will pay a premium for nice – especially when the customer service norm in your industry is not nice.

So how do you deliver nice?

It’s partly a matter of systems and training, but I think a big factor is hiring on personality as much as hiring on skills.   Some people can’t be trained to be nice.

CoCreatr makes the interesting comment on Seth’s post that in Japan, it doesn’t cost any extra for nice.  This brought back some memories of the 4 years I spent in Japan…

….like the convenience store clerk who chased me halfway down the street because I forgot my 1 yen change

…or the two post office employees who visited my company to profusely apologise for the fact that the packaging was ripped on a 200 yen ($2) product sample, complete with a pouch of cash to compensate me for the loss.

I ‘ve just finished reading Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways To Be Persuasive by Cialdini et al.  It’s a followup to Influence and, while not as good as the latter work, is still a worthwhile addition to any marketer’s bookshelf.

The book is organised into 50 vignettes of around 3 or 4 pages each on scientifically validated methods of persuasion.  To me, one of the most useful chapters was on the effect that “Third Party Endorsement” can have on persuading others, even when the “endorser” is obviously closely connected with the “endorsed”.

It’s well known that it is more effective to have a third party endorse you than to sing your own praises. But what surprised me is how the “endorser” doesn’t have to be a “separate” from you as you might think. (Psychologists call this the fundamental attribution error: when observing another person’s behaviour, we tend not to give sufficient weight to the role situational factors (e.g. money) play in shaping that person’s behaviour.)

In one study, the researchers had a receptionist in the rentals department of a real estate office handle incoming enquiries in one of two ways:

1. The “non-endorsed” version When an incoming call came in, the receptionist would simply respond, “Oh, rentals, you need to speak to Judy”.
2. The “endorsed” version When an incoming call came in, the receptionist gave a mini-endorsement of Judy’s skills: “Oh, rentals, you need to speak to Judy, who has over fifteen years’ experience rending properties in this neighborhood. Let me put you through now.

With the second version, the real estate agents reported a signficant rise in the number of appointments they were able to close.

What appeals to me about this idea is its simplicity.  It can be implemented into most incoming lead handling processes at no cost and allow you to close even more warm leads.

Gotta love that fundamental attribution error.

I’m sure you’ve seen or at least heard of online survey tools that
allow you to capture and collate large volumes of information from
prospects or clients.

Finding the technology is simple (two popular providers are
Zoomerang.com and SurveyMonkey.com) but it’s how you USE surveys to
create value and enhance your marketing that really counts.

One Marketing Results client created a comprehensive Business
Audit, structured as a survey, that they went on to sell for $297 a
pop. Another colleague conducted a survey of IT professionals
that was picked up by influential media in the space as “latest
research”.

Here are 15 ideas on ways to use surveys in your online
business to create more value:

15 Ways To Leverage Surveys In Your Online Business

1. Conduct quarterly “client satisfaction” surveys.

2. Add relevant polls / surveys to your website or newsletters to
learn more about your market and start a 2-way conversation.

3. Set up a survey for clients to pass on THEIR clients i.e.
leverage.

4. Use surveys to pre-qualify or pre-frame potential clients.

5. Include a survey in an autoresponder series to automatically
capture testimonials.

6. Survey customers and clients on where THEY think you add value
(their perspective might be different from yours).

7. Use internal surveys to capture ideas to improve productivity or
team satisfaction.

8. Include feedback surveys with product literature – use them as
testimonial capture device AND to improve future versions of the
product.

9. Ask clients or prospects to tell you their biggest frustration
or problem relating to your area of expertise. Use this info to
develop a white paper based on the most common problems.

10. Use surveys to capture ideas and strategies from a large number
of people to collate into a “master” document.

11. Create a short 1 minute feedback survey and include the link in
your email signature.

12. Send an email to past clients and ask for testimonials and
feedback. Structure the survey so respondents provide information
on the topics you want.

13. Structure a product / service as a survey and give it away as a
“value add” or better yet, sell it.

14. Use surveys in your front-end marketing to identify customer
“hot buttons” so you can craft your sales message in the right way
for maximum impact.

15. Survey your market and use the results as the basis of a press
release and/or pre-eminence building tool.

Leave a comment to submit your additional survey ideas.

It’s been a loooooong time coming, but I’ve finally launched the new Marketing Results blog design – a big thanks to my designer Phil! There’s some new functionality in place as well, including:

• Featured article links (hard coded)
• Newsletter signup
• More intuitive commenting
• Related posts
• Social bookmarketing
• Recent comments
• Add-to-RSS buttons
• Internal tags

Any comments on how the design could be further improved? I’d love to hear them.

As you may have already discerned, the technical side of blogging is not my forte.  I’m sure it’s relatively straightforward but I just haven’t got around to learning how it all works.

However, I do believe that blogging for business is very worthwhile and will continue to be so, especially in non-Internet and non-technology related niches.

(For example, Jeff Veale from All Suburbs Catering in Sydney publishes his Sydney Catering Blog to keep clients and prospects up to date with what’s happening in the catering world that may be of interest.  Although I don’t have any hard stats, I know that this is one of the many successful marketing strategies that Jeff uses to market his business.)

But back to the subject of this post…

I’ve found that it’s incredibly easy to set up a wordpress blog, but a little harder to manage and customise a blog to your specifications.  Here are a couple of things I’ve learnt along the way.

Beating comment spam

Most blogs allow users to add comments to posts.  Unfortunately, bots take advantage of this to post sometimes hundreds of spammy comments (mostly about niche adult-oriented content you’ve probably never heard about).

Recently I installed the Spam Karma plugin to gobble up spam comments, but it unfortunately gobbled up legitimate comments as well.

So I got rid of that and replaced it with what I’m hoping will be a formidable Akismet / Math Comment tag team (thanks to Yaro for that tip).

Allowing trackbacks

Trackbacks are links between posts on different blogs.  In theory, when someone links to this blog, a “trackback” link should be added to this blog linking back to their blog.  However, this isn’t happening right now – I think this is because I need to supply a special “trackback URL” at the end of each post.  I’m in the process of working out how to do this.

Blog Maintenance

While a blog doesn’t have to be fancy, to make them really work well I believe that they have to be equipped with a good smattering of the latest doohickies that make your blog easy to use, interesting and sticky.  I’ll see what I can add over the next couple of weeks and report back on how it went.

Over the past couple of months I’ve been working with Danielle Rodgers from CloseConnexion to help launch her brand new singles event concept. CloseConnexion holds singles events in Brisbane that are aimed at the 25+ market. The tagline we’re running with at the moment is…

“CloseConnexion…the easiest, most intriguing way for singles aged 25+ to connect.”

Why “intriguing”? Glad you asked!

Danielle has launched an entirely new singles event format based around a table game that she designed called The Meet Market™. Here’s what a recent press release had to say:

Marrying the best of the old and the new in dating, CloseConnexion have developed a unique method of bringing singles together. The emphasis is on encouraging playful, romantic encounters through entertaining conversation.

Singles meet in a comfortable, stylish environment to play The Meet Market™ – a board game where groups of six single men and women discover each other and themselves.

The game forms the catalyst for social interaction in a fun and non-threatening environment.

Its cheeky yet informative format is a great way to meet potential mates at a stylish and controlled dating event. Through the question cards, called “Frequent Flirters”, players are invited to discuss a range of topics that polite folk would rarely attempt on their first encounter. It is the ultimate icebreaker for discerning singles.

Positioning for success

While the dating events / introductions market in Australia is large, it’s dominated by a number of well-established incumbents such as RSVP and Blink Dating (Speed Dating). Danielle has tried to come up with something completely unique that caters to a different market (25+, right up to 60 or older).

Especially when entering an established market, differentiation is your main marketing weapon and CloseConnexion has that by the truckload.

I’ll be attending the Premiere event next Thursday 22nd June at Brisbane’s ultra-stylish Platform Bar.

If you’re in Brisbane and you’d like to come too, book here at the CloseConnexion website.

It’s been a while since I’ve made a blog entry – like about 6 months.

We started this blog about 18 months ago but it’s funny how mission-critical stuff seems to get in the way. Now I’ve come to my senses and realised that this is an important way to communicate with the business owners and independent professionals that make up our client base.

And it’s funny how things come full circle. About a year ago my colleague Ed Chalmers introduced our mutual friend Yaro Starak to blogging. Well, he took the ball and ran with it, going on to create the very successful Entrepreneur’s Journey blog, which has been going from strength to strength thanks to Yaro’s consistent efforts.

Now today Yaro came in and replaced our old Moveable Type blog with this snazzy WordPress blog.

Over the coming months I’ll be writing about my areas of expertise / interest, including:

1. Sales lead generation
2. Results-driven marketing
3. Successful integration of online and offline marketing methods
4. Business effectiveness
5. Work-life balance

…and other assorted topics as they come to mind.

I hope you find the content interesting, and I welcome your comments.

Will Swayne
www.Marketing-Results.com.au