Growth Archives - Retaliate 1st

Digital, Marketing, Uncategorized, Website

5 Reasons Your Business Needs a CRM System

Retaining existing customers is almost always more profitable for a business than acquiring a new one. This is because the efforts and costs involved in gaining new clients is exponentially greater than retaining the existing one. Enter the need for a CRM.

If you want to retain more of your current customers, you should invest in a Customer Relationship Management system (CRM).

A CRM system is a valuable asset for your business because it keeps control of all your customers and contacts; and is an effective way to build and maintain good business relationships with all your existing and potential customers.

Why Invest in a CRM?

A CRM helps you track your customers’ needs, questions, complaints, issues and interactions in a simple way. This helps your customer service team deal with problems (and potential cross-sales, upsells, and referrals) fast, and without complicated spreadsheets or multiple mailing lists. Responding to customer queries quickly helps your customers bond with you, which increases your customer retention rate.

2. A good CRM system will also analyze your customers’ behaviors and help the sales team to find out customers’ needs. These needs can then be converted into business leads and sales opportunities because these provide excellent data and market research. And, satisfying your customers’ wants is going to lead to in increase in referrals. Similarly, historic data of purchases can be used to predict customers’ behaviors or purchasing patterns.

3. A CRM allows you to collaborate with your team, and your customers using a single tool. The days of maintaining customer lists in notebooks, excel sheets, and word documents, then mass emailing your client list are over. You can manage and reach everyone with one tool, from one place, and any of your employees can join the effort even if they’re out of the office.

4. Because the workflow is automated through a CRM system, it helps in reducing the operational cost, which increases your company’s profits. And, through analysis of current customer behavior data, you can make forecasts for future profitability.

5. It retains your most valuable data in one safe, secure location. You can choose which employees have access to this data. This prevents lead theft and client poaching by employees that leave your company. Simply alter the password, and their access is cut off.

March 12, 2017/by chris

Digital, Marketing, SEM, SEO

How to Get Your Site Featured in Google’s Snippet

How Do You Get Your Site Featured in Google’s Snippet?

Getting to the top of Google’s search pages is no longer enough to dominate your completion. While good SEO keeps your site on the first page, and well-written ads keep you atop the PPC results, there is a newcomer in the search world: Snippets

Snippets

Google wants to help searchers. It’s what launched them to become the dominant search engine that they are today. Anyone who remembers the frustrating search results on Yahoo, Lycos, or Dogpile will attest that Google simply delivers better search results.

With mobile and “question” searches rising, Google has changed the game again.

In almost any search you’re now bound to find a snippet of info, often enumerated, in a small box between the final PPC ad and the first organic listing. Below is the snippet that appears for the search “How to Get More Leads:”

Snippets Are Quick Answers

Google puts up snippets with the best info available. This allows users to get the answers they’re looking for without clicking the link. However, since the snippets tend to display only part of the info, the links inside of the snippet box tend to be clicked a lot.

Google can source simple, direct answers from their own knowledge base.
But, most business or product related queries are sourced from third party sites, i.e., your web site.

Imagine the potential traffic that would result in an SEO strategy that lands you in the top 3 of the PPC ads, with a featured snippet, and then the top organic search result.

How to Get a Featured Snippet

The problem is that getting your site featured isn’t easy. But, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. And, with snippet results being so new, we’re not even exactly sure how Google pulls the info. Or, if they will rotate results in the future.

But, we can speculate and improve our business sites so that we have the best possible chance of being featured. At worst, you’ll improve the content of your site and make your customers very happy. An informative, easy-to-read site will almost always bring in more leads, clients, and sales.

Step 1:

SearchEngineLand recommends the following tactic for your first step:

Identify a common, simple question related to your market area. Provide a clear and direct answer to the question. Offer value added info beyond the direct answer. Make it easy for users (and Google) to find the information

The advice is solid. Their answer is actually the featured snippet for the search “how to get a featured snippet.”

Step 2:

Answer Questions

Research the most asked questions about your product, service, or industry. Create pages and blog posts that answer this question.

Be direct

– title pages and blogs with the exact question wording. Then, answer the query with as much info as needed. Use numbered lists and bullet points.

Break up info to make it both easier for your customer to absorb (or skim), and for Google to pull the best bits.

Step 3

Make your snippet-worthy information easy to find

This requires some basic SEO housekeeping:

Giving each article or blog a strong title that uses the question
Using the question and its variation in the content
Adding pictures or video, with proper tagging, as needed
Over deliver on info. Don’t skimp on the answer. You can provide long copy while also using bullets and numbered lists.

January 29, 2017/by chris

Culture, Digital, Marketing, Website

Do You Really Want More Clients and Customers?

If you’re running a small business, or are a solo entrepreneur, you probably spend much of your time thinking about how great life would be if you could only get a few more clients, get a few more customers, or land that one big account.

But, before you go big time, you should take a moment to make sure you’re ready to scale your small business up.

From Barley in Business to Busty to Death

It happens all the time.

A small business is doing ok, but the cash flow isn’t exactly overwhelming. When you run an online or service based business, especially if you’re running the show alone or with a small group, this can be a frustrating time.

Then, all the work, all the banging your head against the wall, and all of the planning takes a turn. You hit the tipping point. Whatever you want to call it, your business goes from scraping by to breaking through.

Now, it doesn’t have to be breaking through to super-stardom. Even if your business grows 20% suddenly, that can translate to a lot of extra income.

And a lot of extra work.

Are You Ready to Grow Your Business?

Take a minute to assess your current work load, productivity, and efficiency.

If you have a few customers or clients and you’re behind on orders or fulfilling service agreements, you’re probably not ready to grow. Getting more contracts might help your bank account, but it will not magically cure your productivity issues.

However, if you are consistently knocking your work load out of the park, you might be ready. If you work with a team, make sure everyone is on board. Having a key employee bail during a growth surge can leave you and your customers frustrated.

Think Big

When you’re ready to grow, start thinking big. If your firm normally handles 10 clients per month, or 20-customers per week, start to think about how it will be to take care of 100 clients a month or 200 customers. Then, think a little bigger.

This isn’t an exercise in daydreaming. It’s actually part of the planning process. If you’ve planned how you’ll handle the extra customers, you’ll be ready when it happens. Sure, no plan is fool-proof, but you’ll be in a much better position if you know where you’re going vs winging it, failing, then losing your new customers.

Find Financing

If you’ve bootstrapped so far, it may be time to consider financing or investors.

If you’re a solo-business, this can be intimidating. But, if you want to jump to the next level (and the levels beyond), finding funding may be necessary.

Before you panic and lose your nerve on this one, understand that funding can mean as little as a few thousand dollars to invest in equipment, marketing, or anything that will help you service more customers.

Concentrate on What You Do Best

The E-Myth by Michael Gerber talks a lot about how most entrepreneurs have one area of expertise, i.e., the baker who opens a bakery. But, most small business owners don’t just do the baking.

They do the baking, the ordering, the marketing, the cash register, the clean-up, and the book.

When you’re ready to scale, you’re ready to hand off some of these jobs. Stick to baking and you’ll have the best baked goods in town. Leave the marketing to a marketer, the books to your accountant (or bookkeeper), and the minutia to your employees.

January 29, 2017/by chris

Content, Marketing, Social Media

4 Ways to Fight a Fake Negative Review

No matter how small the area, how small the client base, or how small the business, before long, someone will post a negative review about you. Now, large companies expect this. Because of the sheer number of reviewers, they can withstand some a negative review. However even one negative review can sink a small, medium, new, or local business.

What’s worse, often those negatives are fake. They come not from dissatisfied customers, but from competing businesses or former employees. Sites like Yelp, despite their endless videos and text detailing their mysterious algorithm for ferreting out fakes, do little to police this problem. This means that anyone with a wi-fi connection can, in a few keystrokes, cost you tens of thousands of dollars.

News sites like the Huffington Post, the NY Times, The Guardian, and the Wall Street Journal have helped expose another disturbing aspect of online reviews. All have cited instances where bad reviews were posted before a business had even opened! This happens more frequently in highly competitive industries (restaurants, home improvement contractors, tech gear, etc.)

Don’t let a negative review sink your business. Here’s how you can fight back:

The Pen is Mightier

Getting angry and ranting online is a big no-no. It will only make you look worse.

But, posting a sane, measured, well-written response on your website, blog, Google, Facebook, and in-response to the negative (if the review site allows replies) allows you to swing public opinion back in your favor.

Don’t be afraid to flood the few negatives with positive articles, blogs, videos, and reviews from your happy customers. This is the best, fastest, and most effective way to drown even the most virulent of phone negatives.

This Infographic Shows How Reviews Impact Your App or Business

You’ll have to be consistent when doing this. It may take time, but if you continually hit back with positivity, you gain the respect of potential customers. Hiding from negatives makes you look guilt in the court of public opinion. But, respoinding rationally, with facts – even if you must state that this person was never a customer – shows that when a problem, real or fake, pops up, you deal with it head on. This will put future customers at ease, knowing you don’t duck problems.

No Figting

Whatever you do, do not get angry and start a war of words. Ranting, rambling responses make you look terrible. Even if the review is clearly a fake – a personal attack, written by a non-customer, or posted by someone with an ax to grind – you should respond in a well-organized, calm manner.

This actually makes the fake review seem even more obviously phony.

Spread the Positive

Want to bury negatives in positivity?

Contact your customers and ask them to review you online. You can offer an ethical bribe in exchange for a review (not for a positive review, that’s where you can get into trouble). But, if you target customers you already know are thrilled with your product or service, this is a safe play.

There are few things more powerful for fighting negative reviews (and boosting sales) than a genuine positive review from a real customer.

Be Consistent

Never stop asking customers to review you online. The more positives posted, the less impact negatives have. Humans tend to be attracted to the negatives (with negative reviews being read far more than positive), but if a few bad ones are floating in a sea of good, the impact is lessened. It’s hard to argue when there are 49 Five-Star reviews and only 1 One-Star.

September 17, 2016/by chris

Marketing, SEO

Are Backlinks Still Important For Business SEO

With the whirlwind of changes at Google, many businesses are confused about how to boost their site’s rankings without being penalized. Yes, Google has changed its algorithm (scoring system for how it ranks websites in their search results). But, the truth is that Google is always changing its scoring system. We only hear about the major updates. No matter what changes Google implements, one thing it has never, and probably will never, tolerate is using spammy, paid backlinks to boost a site’s rankings. This is actually good news for most businesses. If you play by the rules, you’ll dominate your competition.

We want to lay out our recommendations on how to use backlinks to boost your business through dominating the SERPs and driving organic traffic to your website.

Example of strong incoming backlinks

The Truth About Backlinks

In the old days, simply purchasing large batches of back links and pointing them to your site’s home page would get you ranked on page one quickly.

Google caught up with the schemes and began penalizing those companies that attempted to game the system.

Unfortunately, most SEO firms threw the baby out with the bathwater. They railed against all back-linking strategies, fearful that they’d be on the business-end of a Google-slap.

Bad Back Links Are Spam

If you can buy several thousand links for a few dollars, you can be sure that they’re coming from spam sites. Utilizing these links will give your company a momentary boost in the search rankings.

However, Google will catch up and penalize your site.

Should You Avoid Back Links for Your Business Site?

No. You just have to get the right kind of links. The good news is that if you back link properly, your site will rank high and stay high, dominating your market.

The bad news is that this process is time-consuming, and will require a real effort in content marketing. Quality back linking involves writing articles, making videos, sharing content to social media, cooperating with other businesses through guest postings, and overall, building a ton of content that is interesting and useful to your customers.

It is difficult, time consuming and requires a specific skill set to do so. Therefore, most of the fly-by-night SEO firms want nothing to do with it.

However, content marketing, and back-links generated from quality content will boost your search rankings, and help convert traffic into leads.

Remember that SEO needs to be one part of an overall content strategy and that joining your social and SEO/ SEM teams under your content team, will allow for you to find efficiencies and lower CAC and CPL in your business. We frequently see paid cost drop, while organic growth occurs which is ideal for any start-up or emerging business.

How Content can be the tip of your spear, with the other points being social and SEO

July 9, 2016/by chris

Posts