What Are QR Codes And How Can They Be Used In Your Business

What are QR codes? Well, they’re similar to the barcodes used by retailers to track inventory and price products at the point of sale. The main difference between the two is the amount of data they can communicate. Traditional bar codes which I’m sure you’re familiar with use vertical lines and can only hold up to 20 digits, whereas QR codes are two-dimensional (2D) and can hold much more information.

When a customer scans or reads a QR code with their iPhone, Android or other camera-enabled Smartphone, the phone can automatically:

• Be linked to a web page (for your shop, or business)
• Activate a number of phone functions including email, messaging or SMS
• Directed to an online video (Youtube, etc)
• Display prices or other data about a product, etc

Really it makes it EASIER for a customer (or potential customer) to obtain further information about a product – WITHOUT having to enter in information (e.g. your website address). It’s a good marketing and sales tool.

I’ve recently seen a big electrical goods retailer use QR codes as a ‘teaser’ for advertised specials. So it will be interesting to keep tabs on the varied (and creative) uses for QR codes in retailing and business.

$8,000+ In Net Profit After Sending 97 Letters

Direct mail is a beautiful thing once you have a well-crafted letter written in our style of marketing.

Our client, Brad Podmore of Coffee & Tea Supplies WA, sent 97 copies of the letter we wrote for him and picked up a new client worth more than $8,000 in net profit per year!

Brad’s Giovanni blend coffee is so good that he retains cafe and restaurant clients for many years – hence the Lifetime PROFIT Value of that new client would easily be $32,000 over 4 years.

To read other marketing success case-studies, click here.

Is there life after MYOB?

What other accounting systems are used by Australian businesses?

Interesting question… I found this useful list:

• Business Vision 50 Accounting
• BusinessWorks
• DacEasy
• MAS 90
• MAS 200
• Microsoft Dynamics GP
• Microsoft Money
• MYOB Accounting
• MYOB Premier
• One Write Plus
• Peachtree
• Sage – Simply Accounting
• Sage PFW
• Quickbooks
• Quicken
• Timberline

Any others I’ve omitted?

Are You Stuck In The ‘Wrong’ Mode For Business Success?

Entrepreneur v.s. Employee tasks – what’s the difference?

Just had one of those days where you were just putting out fires in your business and you feel like throwing in the towel? The reason often is due to the business owner not setting up the right systems to handle the business operations. It’s a mind-set issue you see. The role of the business owner is to eventually remove themselves from the business. Not be the "cog" in the business.

WHY? Answer: A business is more valuable when it can operate profitably, survive and grow and survive without the business owner.

The business owner needs to spend a little time EACH and EVERY day (as much as possible) to work on "Entrepreneurial tasks" and not "Employee tasks". Entrepreneurial tasks like marketing planning and documenting processes (or working with a staff member to document processes) adds significantly more value to a business than $18-$22 per hour employee tasks like making deliveries, filing, bookkeeping, etc.

For more information about which business tasks are entrepreneurial – click here.

FREEING UP YOUR TIME – why use video?

These days, most business owners use computers and technology. For example, you would have a computerised bookkeeping system in your business. Now we know that you will have say some very specific instructions for a certain bookkeeping process. Or, for that matter, ANY SOFTWARE PROGRAM your staff may be using.

Wouldn’t it be great to avoid those ‘pesky’ questions from staff about HOW to do something on the computer. Or, perhaps your existing staff know how to do something – but if they left your employment, would you know to train the replacement?

SOLUTION: Record a number of very short videos (less than 5 minutes).

Though – don’t record how to use your business software. e.g. how to add a contact, etc. Those videos will already exist on Youtube and on the software developer’s websites.

What you want to do is – only record a SPECIFIC procedure unique to your business. For example, a special way your staff create an invoice, or use MS Outlook for a particular task, or use your in-house production software, etc. Also you don’t want to record dozens of videos for seldom performed tasks either – just the most common daily or weekly functions in your business.

Video is simply just another documentation tool that can be used to free up your time as the business owner. Use it well.

What Richard Branson Thinks About The Late Steve Jobs (Apple)

I was very sorry to hear about the recent passing of Steve Jobs (Pixar, Apple).

Showing my age and confessing to be an early techie – I followed the rise of Apple and Microsoft in the early 1980s and was familiar with the intial Apple computers. Then, over the past three decades I read many books on the topic of technology and technology marketing. Steve Jobs was a true genius.

I came across this article by Richard Branson (Virgin) on his thoughts on Steve Jobs, Apple, having passion in business and on management styles. I thought you’d like it too.

(Under the photo is a link to the PDF version – easier to read)

PDF version – click here

Want To Market Your Services To An Industry Or Niche?

Often good marketing requires TARGETING your ideal industry or niche – whether it’s accountants, lawyers, engineers, etc – or even the wealthy clients of the accountants, lawyers, engineers, etc.

By finding and joining suitable associations, you get the opportunity to “hang out” with your target market. You can then find out their specific needs and wants, to further refine your offering. It’s one thing to measure your marketing results by numbers, but it’s much better to actually ask your market – what they like and dislike about your products and services, and about your marketing. It’s market research at its best.

Check out the "Directory Of Australian Associations" by Crown Content.

 

How Your Customer Promise Can Increase Sales

I’m a big fan of how IKEA does business – especially their marketing and sales methods. If you can – make a trip to an IKEA store to simply view how they retail – you’ll certainly learn a lot.

The Customer Promise Closely following the vision for your business is your definition of your business culture and your Customer Promise forms part of that. It’s very important that not only you (the business owner) and the staff understand and operate daily according to the customer promise – it leads to your customers receiving a consistent level of service which in turn increases sales in your business.

My recommendation – if you don’t have a customer promise clearly defined – arrange a meeting with your staff for a brainstorming session – Ask the question "What’s really important to our customers?" and "How can we define and then deliver on that?"

Building Your Business Asset – How Much Is Your Business Worth?

Bumped into one of my colleagues in the business broking industry – John Denton from Performance Business Sales.

It’s always good to chat to John as he has the ‘finger on the pulse’ regarding the business sales market goes.

One particular statistic that I’m always interested in – is the ROI multiples for particular industries. John and I know that, for example, newsagencies and Australia Post agencies have a high multiple of 3 – that is the listing ‘value’ will be 3 times the net profit.

However, John Denton mentioned that as the trend is away from people buying newspapers and magazines – that these business will be worth less – but, at the moment people are still willing to buy newsagencies and Australia Post agencies at FULL PRICE – unaware of the trend – ahhhh, very interesting.

So – benefit for you? Well, it’s aways good to know HOW much your type of business is worth if you were to sell it – it’s worth contacting a business broker to find out!

Article published from our head office – Balcatta, Perth, Western Australia.

How To Get More Customers Using The Internet And Social Media Marketing…

Maximising your online presence using a keyword bank

How do you search for suppliers on the internet? How do potential customers find you?

It’s a different process… rather than open the index page of the Yellow Pages or thumb through the local newspaper, consumers find services and products by the use of keywords and keyphrases. Unless your website contains these keywords and keyphrases – you won’t get people coming to your website.

A keyword bank is the most valuable resource for your online presence!

What is a keyword bank? It’s a list of keywords and keyphrases that are related to your business.

The image on above illustrates sample keywords for an accounting firm.

Sure, your website designer or your Internet advertising company may have used some of the popular terms (keywords) on your website or in your internet advertisements, but you, as business owner, should know WHAT the popular search terms ARE to ensure that your website contains articles and information USING those keywords.

Now this ‘keyword research’ is easy – you don’t need to pay someone thousands of dollars to do it. In fact, Google have a FREE search tool to assist you with your ‘keyword research’. Check it out…

Google Keyword Research Tool – click here

Loss Of Walk-by Traffic – Don’t Let This Happen To Your Business!

I’ve been saying it for years… when it comes to marketing – you can’t simply rely on local walk-by or drive-by traffic. You are putting yourself at the mercy of the local conditions – car park changes, local council works, nearby building works, etc.

Here’s proof… have a read of this article in The West Australian newspaper this week…. One retailer has lost his franchise business, others are running at a loss and all had to lay off staff and reduce hours. We certainly feel for these business owners… not a nice thing to happen… but it does unfortunately.

Retailing requires smarter thinking – that’s why you have to look at other ways (strategies) to market and deliver your products to consumers.

What’s The Best Way To Figure Out If Your Website Is Working For You Or Not?

The big trend now is a shift away from traditional PRINT media like magazines and newspapers to the internet. People like to search and find information online these days, especially for a product or a service.

A business website should bring in leads and assist to close sales to customers! Otherwise, it’s a waste of your hard earned money! Most businesses these days have an internet presence (ie. website). The CHALLENGE is to find out if YOUR website working for YOU? Will it generate leads and customers for you as effectively as traditional advertising? To answer these questions, you will need to TRACK enquires – no different to what you should have been doing with traditional advertising.

Okay, let’s work it out… Leads will come from your web-site in a number of ways:

1) Someone calls your business. To find out how many calls you get a week from your website, you can:

1. Use a separate phone number and note how many calls to that line (using a PABX, or a tally sheet), or
2. You can pay for a special VOIP service that records the number of calls, or
3. Train your staff to ask that important question "How did you find about us?"

2) Someone fills in your ‘Contact Us’ form (this is better than listing your email address on your website). Then record how many form enquiries you get each month.

3) Someone takes some other online action, like makes an online purchase, or enters their details to download a catalogue, etc. However, if someone subscribes to your e-newsletter – typically that is not a warm lead (as you usually only have their first name and email address only at this stage).

NEXT. Okay, you’ve got some tracking in place now – but then you discover that you are not getting as many enquires as you should… so we need to take the next step and IDENTIFY what’s happening on your website.

I’ll reveal exactly how you do this in my next post… as they say… "Stay tuned…"

How The Lifetime Customer Value Principle Can Make You A Rich Business Person…

The most difficult and expensive sale we ever make to a customer is the first one. In that first, important, transaction we earn or lose the trust of the customer.

Think back about your own consumer experiences – have you ever been just a little concerned about your first purchase from a business? It might have been from that florist delivery service you’ve never used before, or that tradesperson you’ve hired, or even product related concerns, say about a new computer or air-conditioning unit.

Once we have the trust of the customer, we open the door to many more sales and referrals.    Why would you want to know the lifetime value of a customer? The lifetime value of a customer is a measure of the value of the customer to your business. It is the potential contribution of the customer to your business over a period of time. When you know the lifetime value of a customer, you have an understanding and awareness of how much you would or should be willing to invest to acquire a customer.

For example:

Mary is a new customer. Mary spends $60 with you, but it costs you $20 to supply the product or service and $40 to acquire Mary as a customer. You might think that acquiring Mary was pointless, i.e. no profit was made. But if I was to tell you that Mary needs to repurchase or revisit every six weeks spending $60 each time, with a profit to you of $40, plus Mary begins refers other people to your business, essentially costing you zero in advertising costs… Well, I’m sure you can see the benefits here.

When you evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing, instead of focusing on that initial, single transaction, you should really focus on the Lifetime return for the investment made.

Lifetime Customer Value = average customer spend X number of times of repurchases in a year X the number of years a customer stays with your business (on average). PLUS Referrals!

Using our Mary example:

LTV = $60 X (52 weeks in a year / 6 weeks) X 5 years = $2,600

Would you spend that $40 to acquire Mary if she was worth $2,600 to your business PLUS referrals? I hope you said YES!

If you understand this significant marketing principle, you’ll see that you can now justify a much greater advertising/marketing investment when you look at your returns in this way, and this provides the engine for significant business growth.

Often your competitors are too cheap to make this important investment, and this can give you a competitive advantage.

Mobile/Internet Shopping – How Will It Affect Retailing?

What do you think about the above article from the Wall St Journal? It’s an important shopping trend not only for US consumers but for Australian shoppers as well.

Retailers, resellers, wholesalers, manufacturers and anyone that sells a ‘product’ will be affected by the growing trend towards researching and even purchasing online. Once wary and shy consumers are now experienced online consumers by the use of ebay, Google, Gumtree and even Facebook.

Whilst many traditional brick’s'morter retailers look at online shopping as a possible way to reduce their overheads (offering more stock without increasing floor space and reducing staff costs) it means they are now competing even more.

This means that the retail experience for the customer has to be even better so that consumers WANT to make the trip to a retail store. Retailers who don’t improve the customer experience and customer service will struggle to maintain revenue and will ultimately go out-of-business.

Corporate Business Finally Uses Some Good Marketing

Ahhh, so refreshing to see a corporate business use some good marketing and a bit of fun.

Traditional Corporate Marketing – oh, so, so boring!

Isn’t it amazing that almost all the marketing we see as consumers (and business owners) from the corporate world is so dry and boring. This includes the thousands of corporate and big business web sites out there.

Corporate businesses want to be seen as ‘Professional’, but professional doesn’t mean they have to put us to sleep!

Most of us respond to interesting news, we want to be entertained and have a little fun. Adding a bit of humour and personality in marketing goes a long way to CUTTING through the ordinary.

How can you use personality in your business marketing?

The main ‘trick’ is to use ordinary language and write like you are speaking to a person. Tell stories and explain why you are having a sale, or why you created a particular product, etc. Get excited about your product and service BENEFITS. Use emotional wording.

For example.

Treat yourself and your taste spuds to our tender, juicy and mouth watering MEX beef steak – cooked to perfection with your choice of tantalising sauces. If you don’t think our MEX is the best steak you’ve ever had – you won’t have to pay for it. In fact, we’ll give you a $30 voucher to use towards another main meal of your choice FREE!

So much better than…

Porterhouse steak $32.00.

What Are You Doing About Lost Customers?

True story. I just got off the phone after much frustration trying to track down my insurance broker.

As of last Friday we have relocated office and we need a new insurance policy (the insurance was covered in our outgoings at our old Erindale road office). I had a three year old letter which I kept from my insurance broker (it was the last correspondence I had from him). The broker was very experienced with commercial insurance which is why I wanted to use his services again. Now that I need him, I can’t find him. I’ve asked another insurance broker to quote me on a policy. The commission and the sale of the insurance policy will most likely go to this company.

HELP – I’m a ‘lost-customer’ with money to spend!

It just goes to show you that most businesses will spend an extraordinary amount of money to attract new customers and clients, but do very little to keep in touch with past customers. Sales are lost.

The leaky bucket photo above illustrates this problem.

I believe the main reason is that customer marketing is often ‘CLUNKY’. It requires administration effort to send something to a customer.

If the business owner or salesperson don’t ask the staff to organise it – it will never happen.

We understand that the business owner (or salesperson) wants the results (i.e. the sales). That’s why we provide a number of AUTOMATED customer follow-up systems to our clients.

If you would like more information about our AUTOMATED marketing systems, click here to send us an email.

Business Saves $1,177 Annually In 5 Minutes!

One important area of improving your profit margins is to reduce your costs. Sometimes you can reduce your costs without a reduction in the quality of service you receive from a supplier, sometimes you’ll see lower quality – cheaper isn’t always better. However…

I saved a client $1,177 in 5 minutes. Without mentioning the name of the client, I can say the business is located in Perth. For illustration purposes, let’s call my client – Mary.

Area saved #1 : Mary sent me an email saying that she was still paying $77 per month on her Sensis bill for a CitySearch web site.

CitySearch was one of the many online directories that popped up during the dotcom boom in 1997-2000. It was bought out by Sensis. Back in the 1997-2000 period many businesses were called with an offer of a new website for only $77 per month.

What many businesses didn’t realise is that this monthly fee went on forever. Sensis never contacted Mary to say “Hey we’re billing you $924 per annum for a web site we built 10 years ago, we can now update your website for free if you like.”

Mary’s website was replaced over a year ago (not by CitySearch), so I knew that the $77 per month was a totally unnecessary expense. I got Mary to cancel the CitySearch service. I only wish Mary brought it to my attention sooner. She could have saved over $1,000 in the past year.

STRATEGY FOR YOU : Check all your supplier’s invoices and question any unnecessary services.

Area saved #2 : Do you have a website? If you do you’ll be paying an annual fee for domain name renewal. Did you know however that I use Netregistry (an Australian company) – their annual fee for renewal is $44.95. If you’re paying any more than that you are paying too much.

STRATEGY FOR YOU : Check the bill from your domain name supplier.

Area saved #3 : Unnecessary domain name registration. Mary had a website ending with .net.au. DotnetDotau domains are really not needed. If you want to secure another domain for your business, register the Dotcom name as well as your DotcomDotau address.

STRATEGY FOR YOU : Don’t register or renew a DotnetDotau domain (.net.au). Save the money instead.

Mary’s savings per annum : $984 for CitySearch, $140 for (.net.au) and $113 for using Netregistry to renew her DotcomDotau address. Total saving $1,177.

(Actually it took less time for me to save my client $1,177 than to write this email. But I thought you’d appreciate this information.)

The lesson : Charges from suppliers for unnecessary or excessive fees is commmon. It’s worthwhile to periodically check all your invoices and question any charges you don’t know about or feel are overpriced. This is an easy way to improve your profit margins.

Are Peers On Your Team Too?

In business much can be learnt from peers in your own industry or from related industries.

I found an ‘old’ photo – well, a November 2008 photo of Ari Galper (left), Steve Baker (right) and myself (middle) after we had attended a two-day marketing seminar.

Ari Galper is the creator of Unlock The Game™, a completely different mindset about selling. I actually invested in Ari’s program ‘Unlock The Game™’ back in 2005. The program based on using sincerity to build trust in a sales environment. Highly recommended.

Then there is Steve Baker former business coach to the carpet cleaning industry and now famous for his expertise with fax and voice broadcasts.

What’s Basketball Got To Do With Marketing?

A quote from Michael Jordan : "I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is precisely why I succeed." What a great attitude and what a great man! Isn’t fascinating that every great person has this type of winning attitude and ‘mindset’. After all, in sports and in business – no game or venture (or even every marketing campaign) succeeds every time.

Even successful business leaders like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Donald Trump have failed with certain ventures (read their biographies to find out what they were). But, these successful business people know that one or two ‘home-runs’ can outweigh ten or more failures and make them very rich.

If something doesn’t work, try and try again. If all possible, seek mentors or experts to achieve goals faster. Our expertise here at Kinetic is ‘Great Business Marketing‘. Whether it’s business-to-business marketing (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) we aim to bring in quality leads (enquiries) into a business at the lowest cost possible.

When it comes to business attitude, we found that the wealthiest business owners have a strong ‘marketing mindset’. They understand that they need to ‘invest’ in order to achieve a ROI. For example, a business owner spends $1,000 on advertising, and brings in sales of $5,000 with a profit of $2,000.

Question is – How often would you run that advertisement? I hope you answered – "As often as possible."

Are You a Marketer or a Shop-Keeper?

Everyone who is successful in business has a mentor (or mentors) and a coach – or should have! Even Bill Gates (once the world’s richest man) had Warren Buffett (the world’s second richest man) as his mentor. One of my mentors is Dan Kennedy. I receive his paid newsletter once a month and it’s a great way to improve my business and marketing knowledge. One of the topics in the newsletter was ‘Are You a Marketer or a Shop-Keeper?‘ As I have recently been talking to a number of small retailers I found this topic to be particularly relevant.

Out of 14 retailers who I spoke to in December, only 4 (28%) understood the importance of constant promotion in a retail store. I was dumbfounded! The other 72% held the belief that doing the same things they were doing (very little) was somehow going to lead to sales increasing in their stores.

I heard that Albert Einstein quoted this definition of insanity … "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

These retailers were silently praying for a few more people to come into the store, that staff won’t call in sick, suppliers won’t increase their prices, no competitors will open a shop nearby, and that the landlord won’t up the rent this year. Dan Kennedy calls this approach ‘passive marketing’ – which actually is doing nothing at all. He said "This person is a shop-keeper and an order taker, sticking up a sign, putting goods on a table, sitting and waiting."

The only way forward is being a marketer – constantly promoting to attract new customers, get them to spend more, and return more often. That’s how businesses really improve cash-flow and increase their value.

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