3 Hot Ways to Communicate with Your Customers Online!

By Wendy Burge

It used to be that having a website URL address was the way to show you were hip to the new online movement by having a web presence for your business. However, things are changing rapidly and with the help of newly emerging, user-friendly technology, it is much easier to establish more ways to build good customer relationships. The Internet can offer more than a place to host your website for your business. It can also give you more powerful and creative ways to engage and communicate with your customers. Here are the top 3 hot ways to infuse online communication into your marketing toolbox. 

Blog – Be Read
 
Web logs otherwise known as Blogs are a journal type website. Their structure is quite different however from traditional websites. Blogs allow people to post their ideas, thoughts, expertise, and commentaries on an open site which they can set up through one of the many free, blog hosting sites where people around the globe can read it. Blogs are web-based journals written by anyone and everyone with an opinion to share.

People who write blogs are known as Bloggers. Blogs are often written by only one person and are usually intended to share a point of view about a particular subject. Unlike an on-line magazine or other forms of journalistic commentary, blogs allow the everyday person to take a position in it-globally!  Newbie bloggers be warned, do not post ideas that aren’t your own because active blog readers will let you know they caught you. Just remember that when deciding to create a blog, authenticity is key. Also, not everything you read should be believed. Bloggers are not journalists, but people openly offering unsolicited opinions, much like people standing on a street corner sharing their ideas and latest experiences. It is up to you to stop, listen, and believe or not believe their credibility.
 
Blogs are finding their way into the business world by means of bloggers who post opinions about businesses, products, and services. This can be a good thing as their posting act like testimonies and can be used to actively drive traffic, the prospective customers, to a business. On the flip side, a small business owner who blogs can easily create an expert position by posting about their business ideas, intentions, and desires in a way that positions them with a transparency for viewers to read and learn more about them. Likewise, as a blogger, yourself, you can post feedback on other people’s blogs that are relative to your industry and or target market of customers as a means of positioning your expertise.

Readers can post commentaries, when allowed, and interact within the co-creation of their experiences with your business by offering their feedback. Blogs can easily allow for customers, prospects, and the world, in general, to discover more about your business in a less “salesie” way. 

Podcast – Be Heard
 
Broadcasts of audio that are downloaded to listening devices like an iPod, the most common, are called Podcasts. Podcasts are sound bites of audio content that are broadcasted to people through a subscription service. People can receive regular updates of audio created by the host person or podcaster. Podcasters can create unique “talk-radio” content on any subject with which they have experience– lasting anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour-long show.

Like having your own radio station, podcasts allow a person to create “radio shows” that people can listen to at their own convenience by downloading show segments to their computer or other listening devices like an iPod or MP3 player. With a few pieces of equipment; a computer, a mic (microphone), and the Internet, anyone can create a podcast. These small sound bites of audio, or podcast shows, are then uploaded on to iTunes. (That’s right–you do not need to be a band, book or movie to get on iTunes.) People can then subscribe to your podcast show. New podcast segments are finally uploaded to the hosting distribution site and are sent to subscribers who can download the podcast to their preferred listening devices.
 
Podcast are equivalent to blogs, in the same way that they are open to anybody who wants to talk about a topic of choice. Small business owners can easily convey their expertise by broadcasting their knowledge through their own podcast shows. This is a great way for small business owners to update and offer timely topics of interest to their followers.
 
Podcasts are great for people who prefer talking over writing; however, some planning and prep work should be done before hitting the mic. Spontaneity can be okay, but, tightening up on a topic with a scripted show outline allows for clearer content to be communicated. URL links to your shows are generated and can be posted on your website, blog, Twitter, Facebook, and within email marketing pieces to your customers.

Podcasts are great “calling cards” in positioning your expertise. Once podcasters are up and running and their shows are getting exposure, it is common to be asked to be interviewed as a guest expert on other podcast shows related to your industry. You can not find better PR than that! 

Video – Be Seen 
 
Web video is probably better noted through sites like YouTube. However, it is slowly making its way as a new, hot online marketing strategy. As advancing technology makes it easier to create video clips and upload them to sites like YouTube, video allows people to capture content with relative ease for others to see and for the videographer to be seen. While we have all seen the stupid-person antics caught on video and posted on YouTube, video as a communication media is catching on with other people besides the amateur, candid-camera enthusiasts. Again, with just a few pieces of equipment– a computer, a video camera, and the Internet, anyone can create simple video clips to convey their messages.
 
The business world is starting to catch on that this simple tool is great for delivering personalized messages about updates, product enhancements, and promotional offers. Some organizations are going as far as creating a themed series of video clips, often humorous in nature, in hopes that these small mini-videos go viral, and will be sent by viewers to each other around the global-net to see. They are often relatively inexpensive to make and offer a flexible way to create non-written content on a weekly basis to share with consumers.
 
You do not need to be a large corporation to take advantage of this new communication tool, either. Because of the reasonable cost, mostly in equipment, it is easy for a small business owner to start creating video clips about a topic specific to their industry. By posting it to a YouTube account, they can offer links to customers through a very personal and interactive media that goes beyond the written word or voice-only recording. This is great for businesses and organizations which naturally don’t lend well to the other formats above. Because it is so easy to create, it is used for product demonstration, speeches, and sales training.
 
Video is also popping up as an add-on to blogs as it is easy to create and upload along with a posting-of-commentary about the topic covered for the viewers to also read. It conveys more personality than just the written word alone. This is called Vlogging, short for video blogging. And like a podcast, video content can be added to iTunes and this is called Vodcasting. Again the idea is that each video is created, uploaded, and sent to subscribers who download it to watch at a more convenient time.
 
As you can see above, the numerous words bolded constitute a whole new vocabulary developing to explain this wonderful, marketing phenomenon which we are finding and creating online. Become familiar with them and their meanings because your customers and clients are learning them, too. 

© 2009 Wendy Burge – Radiant Edge Consulting.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Radiant Business & Marketing Coach Wendy Burge publishes the On the Edge! weekly ezine–Where business, marketing, and lifestyle meet. If you’re ready to have radiant marketing, make more money, and have more freedom in your small business, get your FREE tips now at www.RadiantEdgeConsulting.com

 

Leverage the Internet for More Freedom and Profitability in Your Business

by Wendy Burge
 
Whenever we start a new business there is a sense of excitement, maybe even a bit of fear, and always a massive learning curve.  All the new experiences of running a business can be taken in strife, as we tell ourselves, “This is just what it takes to get things rolling.” However, how long after starting your business did you begin to notice you were losing your days to working? Not just the stuff you did with your clients, but, all the other items that take time and are necessary for running a business?
 
I know from first-hand experience that it was not long after starting my business I realized I had not created a new business for myself, I had actually created multiple new jobs! My idealistic sense of entrepreneurial freedom was quickly vanquished by the on-going tasks of running my business-bookkeeping, administrative tasks, marketing, product and service development, and, networking-on top of working with my clients.  It was then I began to look for help as I just could not keep my head above everything.  Fortunately with some help, I discovered the power of leverage-the secret to freeing up time, getting more things done, and the key to making more money in business. The best tool available to do this in small business is the internet. Because of the internet small businesses have more resources at their finger tips with just the click of a button.
 
Here are three ways you can use the internet to help leverage your business in gaining business growth and keeping you sane as a small business owner:

1.      Outsourcing tasks to virtual team members has become the best trend in small business to happen in many years. Virtual professionals offer their services like an employee-but without the added cost. Through the help of the internet, email, virtual business tools, and communication technologies like Skype, it is easier to utilize the services of a well-qualified person to assist with your administrative duties, marketing, bookkeeping, customer service, and more. Solo-professionals can hire a VA (virtual assistant) by the hour or by the task to help free up time-consuming administrative duties which are taking much of their days. By identifying tasks that can be delegated to someone else, business owners can focus on higher pay-off activities like working with clients, developing products or services, or focusing on those things you love to do in your business. In Canada, associations like the Canadian Virtual Assistant Connections and Canadian Virtual Assistant Network are helping change the frontiers for small businesses by creating a resource hub for virtual assistants to connect with businesses in order to assist with their specialty services. (And for some of my readers in other countries, this holds true as well in your area, just Google virtual assistant associations in your country and you will find numerous resources.)
 
2.      People power is not the only gift with which the internet has blessed small businesses. There are numerous web-based tools allowing businesses to take advantage of programs that can put communication and marketing systems on auto-pilot. Tools like auto-responders can be programmed up to a year in advance with communication emails, online newsletters, and special announcements to prospects and clients. This can greatly help with marketing campaigns. Communicating with prospects and clients on a regular basis is easy to do with these types of programs. Best of all, once the content is in place and scheduled, you know they will get effective follow up in the marketing of your services with specific messages continuously strengthening your business position. These systems can be added to your website leveraging your sales message 24 hours a day, regardless, with programs like Getresponse orAweber.
 
Case in point, I was able to format my ezine and schedule it for mail out today – Wednesday March 18, yet, I am out of my office today while I spend some time with my boys this week for spring break. For the past 5 years, I have used an email marketing program called Constant Contact that has allowed me to provide consistent email campaigns with newsletters and event promos; I love that I can schedule items ahead at times when I want to take time off as well.
 
3.      Making money for your business on line, 24 hours a day, is also now possible by monetizing your websites with shopping carts and affiliate programs. Long gone are the days of websites as digital brochures. Nowadays, websites can act like your own personal sales force open to do business on your behalf 24/7/365 around the globe. Websites can inform people how you can help them with your services or products. Then, by leveraging this with a shopping cart feature, viewers can purchase right there and then online. Well known programs such as PayPal.com or 1Shoppingcart.com do great jobs in assisting this process. There are many other programs too, that also offer multiple functions to support shoppers as well.

Furthermore, you are not limited to selling your own services or products either. Many larger businesses, programs, and information marketers offer affiliate programs; these are referral programs.  If you feature their product on your site and someone chooses to purchase it, each sale pays out a commission. For example, let us say that you want to recommend books on your website. An affiliate account would be established with a company like Amazon.com. On your site you would place your book recommendation along with a link for the option to purchase the book through your site. The reader is taken to Amazon to purchase that item. For each sale a commission would be made.

There are thousands of products out there that are accessible for affiliate programs.  A well-known site called Clickbank is a hub for businesses and people offering affiliate programs for their services and products. If at all appropriate for your site, placing Google Adwords is also an option to monetize your website. Your site is used as a “billboard” of sort for ads related to your site’s content. Each time someone clicks through an ad, again, you gain a commission.
 
In the corporate world, leverage happens efficiently because of the vast resources they have to tap into helping move business growth quickly. Now, the power of leverage is no longer out of reach for small business owners anymore either, thanks to the help of the internet. Small businesses can leverage growth with great resources helping them bring more freedom and profitability to their owners.

 © 2009 Wendy Burge – Radiant Edge Consulting.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Conscious Business & Marketing Coach Wendy Burge publishes the On the Edge! weekly ezine–Where business, marketing, and lifestyle meet. If you’re ready to have radiant marketing, make more money, and have more freedom in your small business, get your FREE tips now at www.RadiantEdgeConsulting.com