Sticky Tickets now has a page on Facebook
Sticky Tickets now has it's own page on Facebook. Check it out at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sydney-Australia/Sticky-Tickets/41442315619, and become a fan to keep up to date on what's going on at Sticky Tickets and become friends with other fans.
Edward Cross – giving something back
Sticky Tickets and Redback Solutions have been very proud to support the 14 Hour Day for Disability this Saturday, a 14 Hour Triahtlon be completed in its entirety by Newcastle Photographer, Edward Cross. The day is to raise money for Leap Frog Ability and supporters will swim, bike and run various parts of the course with Edward. Edward is giving something back after recoving from a brain injury.
On the morning of Mothers Day 2006, 43 year old Eddie Cross was the top of his game. Hours later, the father of three couldn't count to ten. One hit on the football field changed Eddie's life instantly and forever. Renowned as one of Newcastle's top photographers, he was physically at his peak. But the brain injury he'd sustained was devastating. It robbed him of his independence and threatened to destroy his life, his career and his state of mind. Eddie was facing a long road to recovery but with strength, determination and perseverance, he took that journey one step at a time. Now he's running. And he's not planning on stopping. In fact, Eddie will swim, cycle and run for 14hrs to raise $200, 000 for LeapFrog ability – a Hunter based charity helping people with disability live a better quality of life. It's a feat most of us would not be able to achieve, let alone live with a brain injury. But Eddie is no stranger to perseverance. Before his injury, Eddie completed the gruelling Australian Iron Man Triathlon, FIVE times.
Redback's Managing Director, Matt Freedman has been seen pounding the pavement with Eddie and recently complete the Sydney Half Marathon with Eddie. A solid effort for Matt and just a warm up for Eddie. Matt and other members of the Sticky Tickets team will be participating in bike and run legs on the day.
Viral Marketing Tips
Viral Buzz can build your sales and leads for you. People start talking, a few blogs get posted, a few articles get written. But if you sit back and wait, it can be like watching paint dry. Why not give it a kick along and get proactive.
How to Generate More Buzz
1.Leverage existing online communities
Don’t just think of Facebook and myspace when you think online communities. Look for strong, active communities (both on and offline) that are used by your target market. They might be a group, online forum or social network. Ask for feedback on your products / services and reply proactively to all comments. People will talk about your products and how quickly you responded.
2. Offer an incentive
People often have good intentions to spread the word, but then forget about it as the next important/urgent thing comes up in their daily lives. An incentive, gift or competition keeps them focus on spreading the word.
3. Reach community experts
Experts pervade every group and cross section on any topic. Actively search them out. They often have websites or blogs and are asked (or offer) expert opinion to groups, publications and other media that require interest content. Make them aware of your products and the benefits to their groups. Giving them information on them that isn’t available to everyone else increases their level of expertise and they will only be too please to let everyone know what they know.
4. Talk to customers at the point of sale
Find out where you potential market spends their time. Utilise targeted information based marketing at these places (or websites).
5. Talk to customers in real-world social groups
In regard to point 1, don’t just limit it to the net. Also look for member based organisations, meetings, expos and conferences.
6: Get on the news
Think about what is news worthy about your products. Why do they do for the community that is of interest to everyone. It might not be your product as such, but how an interesting person has been involved with your products or services. (Maybe even a celebrity)
7. Balance with other efforts
Viral and Word-of-mouth is only part of a larger eMarketing strategy. Don’t neglect, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, Email Marketing and offline marketing.
8. Watch what works
Use Google Alerts to try and keep up with what is being said about you out in the wide world. It’s amazing who might be talking about you.
These tips were inspired by Sharon Baker from AOL, to read more with examples of how AOL have made Buzz work for them, click here.
Innovation – does size matter?
Yesterday I was part of a panel discussion on innovation with Fiona Dixon (www.momentbymoment.com.au), John Caelli (www.lmsbc.com.au) which was moderated by Julian Campbell.
Some of the key points that came out of this pannel were
innovation is where a need, a creative solution and a practical application all intersect (see diagram below)
innovation is born out of a need, a problem that needs solving or a driven passion for improvement.
innovation is most sucessful in companies were there is culture of innovation that permeates through the entire organisation. This usually means that the leader of the organisation has a philosophy of innovation.
innovation doesn't have to be a new idea, it is often several old ideas put together in a different way.
while a lot of innovation is technology driven, there is also a large scope for being innovate in processes and other areas in an organisation.
concensus was that small businesses are more likely to be more innovative than large businesses. Large businesses often say they are innovative, however it is often easier for large organisations to throw resources at a problem, which often does not lead to an innovative solution. Small business on the other hand have very limited resources and are force to drive innovation to solve problems with limited resources.
How to keep email marketing personal
E-mail marketing can be one of the most effective marketing strategies for you to communicate with customers, yet as we recieve more and more marketing emails each day, you face the never ending challenge of ensuring that your e-mail campaigns stand out from the crowd and continue to cut through the noise. One of the ways to achieve this is to incorporate personalisation practices to get the attention of your customers.
Every marketing message is competing for our time and email is no different. We receive more emails each day now than ever before and it can be hard to sort through the email mess let alone try to figure out which emails are worth taking the time to read. Taking the time to personalise emails via the subject line, salutation and content is the only way to ensure that your email gets read. Personalising email campaigns lets customers know that you understand their interests and want to offer content that speaks to them. Personalisation also shows customers and prospects that they aren't just another email address added to your mass mailing scheme.
It's important that you use your customer data when personalizing your email campaigns. This data should include geographic, behavioral, demographic and transactional information. If you don't have this data or it is not up to date try asking your customers to fill out a survey or questionnaire. This information is very valuable to the your success. It can be used to better segment your lists in order to more narrowly target customers – offering them relevant content that specifically speaks to their interests.
Luckily automation also can help your personalisation efforts. Although automation doesn't sound like its personal, when used correctly automation processes can allow you to easily follow-up with customers based on consumer behavior – delivering messages at the right time. This keeps your business top-of-mind and helps to keep an on-going dialogue with your customers – further building your relationship. Customers are more likely to do repeat business with companies they trust.
If you take the time and effort to personalise your emails, you will see a great improvement in your email marketing results.
Webinar for Online Small Business Group
I've had the pleasure on presenting seminars over the last couple of years on various areas of eMarketing to Sydney Community College for their GoYoungBiz and GoStartupBiz programs and this week have been involved in presenting a webinar on eCommerce to them using the online meeting software megameeting.com.
Blog articles on this group and my talk can be found at
http://sbmeet.blogspot.com/2008/08/week-7-ecommerce-meeting.html
http://sbmeet.blogspot.com/2008/08/session-7-final-online.html
Customer Service – It’s not rocket science
I've just come back from Fiji, speaking at the Compass Pools Conference on eMarketing alongside key note speaker Bob Pritchard. It was a fantastic conference, one of the most well organised that I've ever been involved in. Whilst Compass Pools has been around for almost 30 years, it is one of the most progressive and forward thinking companies I've had the pleasure of working with. I wish I could say the same about Air Pacific and Qantas.
Bob Pritchard and his wife Suzie and my wife Rebecca and I were due to leave Fiji yesterday on the 9am flight out of Nadi. At 6am, just before we left the resort we got a call saying that our flight had been delayed and to go back to our room and they would let us know when it had been rescheduled. At 8am we hadn't heard anything and rang reception. They contacted Air Pacific and said that they would know at 10am and to call back then. We called back at 10am and reception contacted Air Pacific again and said that they would know at 12pm and to call back. We called back every 2 hours to get the same story and finally at 6pm we were told that we could get a 3.45am flight back to Sydney and a shuttle bus would pick us up from the resort at 12.45am.
At 12.45, Bob, Suzie, Bec and I got the transfer to Nadi International Airport and when we arrived there at 1.45am we found and almost empty airport with no staff working at the counters, about 20 other people looking slightly distressed and no 3.45am flight being shown on the departure board. We spoke with the other people who were waiting for the mysterious 3.45am flight and they had been told the same story. They were confident that the flight did exist and at 2am the staff would arrive and start checking us in.
At 2.30am staff arrived to start checking in a flight to LA and confirmed our fears that there was no 3.45am flight and said we should go back to our hotels and return at 7am for the 9am flight that morning. This was not an option for us as our resort was an hour away. I asked the staff member to confirm that we were actually on that 9am flight and after about 5 minutes of tapping away on the computer we learned that Bob and Suzie were on the flight, but Bec and I weren't and neither were many of the other 20 people that had all turned up in the middle of the night because they had to get to Sydney to make meeting that day or to make connecting flights to other parts of the world. We had in fact been bumped to a flight leaving at 6.30pm that night, another 16 hours away. There was nothing they could do about it as check in wasn’t starting for another 4 hours and they didn’t have access to change around reservations from that computer and that we should come back at 7am to fight for our place on an oversold flight.
What ensued for the next 20 minutes was a round of arguments from all, including me that as our flight had been cancelled and then we had been given misinformation we should have the priority to get on the next flight and we refused to budge until we were confident we were on that flight. Finally a supervisor came down and made the executive to open check in early and check all of us in, take our bags and issue us boarding passes.
We now had 4 hours to wait until we could go through customs and the airport staff suggested we return to our hotels and they would pay for breakfast. It was too far for us to return to our resort, so we went to a nearby hotel, where Bob, Suzie, Bec and I found some lounges and chairs in the foyer (much more comfortable than the airport) and watch the Olympics, chatted and slept.
When we returned to the airport that morning, we were greeted with the bedlam of 600 people trying to check in to a flight that had been well and truly oversold (see pic). There was no way we would have gotten on that flight if we didn’t make a stand at 3am that morning.
The flight boarded, then waited for another hour for 4 people who hadn’t turned up and then finally we took off, 25 hours after we were originally scheduled to. In what was becoming a parody when we landed in Sydney the pilot taxied the plane 2 meters to close to the terminal and the sky bridge wouldn’t line up with the plane so we had to wait another 20 minutes for tractor to come an push us 2 meters back.
Finally I got home at 3pm on Friday, instead of 1pm on Thursday. Having had to cancel meetings and totally exhausted.
Well what could Air Pacific have done. The cancelled flight was probably out of there control?
The number one rule of customer service is, when the S*** hits the fan (whether it’s your fault or not) communication, openness and honesty is the key.
Throughout the whole ordeal, I always felt like I was in the dark. My impression and perception (and when it comes down to it, the customers perception is there reality) was that Air Pacific had no idea what they were doing.
If they had simply said to me on that morning when I first tried to leave the resort that the flight had been cancelled and that we were booked in for the same flight the following day, I could have contact the office rescheduled everything and enjoyed a day of leisure content in the fact that there was nothing I could do about it.
Generating Sales Online
From http://www.dsbn.com.au/articles/e_business/art_eb_GeneratingSalesOnline.asp
Many businesses overlook the importance of marketing themselves online. Content with simply having a website, they sit back and assume new business will just roll in. Not so. You are now competing with millions of other businesses – all vying for the same customer. But with the right marketing strategies you can dramatically boost sales.
Take the case of AA Minerals Specimens. After revamping its website the business recorded more than a doubling in sales. How did they do it? By adopting a few of the following basic strategies.
Keyword search
More than 70% of web activities start with a search engine. Where your business ranks on a search engine is important.
How often do you look at the second page of a search?
To be ‘search-engine friendly’ you must first identify words and phrases commonly used in a search for your product. Workshop this in your business and ask customers and peers. Then test the popularity of your choices using online tools.
Next, consider the placement of content. The way the keywords and phrases are used on a page is important to maximise your objective for the each page. High ranking businesses understand this is an ongoing process and continuously monitor the keywords for their market. Consider employing a specialist web writer for your site as this will assist your site to receive maximum exposure.
Customer lists
Build a customer list for use in marketing campaigns. A common method is Opt-in marketing, where customers are offered an incentive to register at your site. Again, it must be written to take advantage of search engines. Maintain high standards of quality as your objective is to keep customers on the list.
Content is king
Relevant and valuable information will attract customers to your site. The information could be via blogs, forums and/or articles. Allow customers to log in and add to your site.
Leveraging relationships
Leverage your business relationships and encourage others to link to your site, as this broadens your visibility and helps with search engines.
Motivate businesses to push your website
Affiliate marketing programs motivate other businesses to provide links to your website. They are then paid a commission if a sale occurs. For many internet businesses this is their sole source of income, so it is in their interest to drive business to you.
Really Simple Syndication (RSS)
Is a method of sharing and broadcasting content. Other methods rely on the customers coming to your site. If customers register for a RSS feed the information is fed automatically to them. It is likely they will read this first before searching for other information.
Paid advertising
What can you do to accelerate your site’s visibility? Web advertising through search engines is based on keyword clicks and the price is determined by competition for a keyword. Large businesses can pay a higher price for a keyword, which can make the cost prohibitive for SMEs.
Website design
Customers must be able to quickly find what they are after. Pages must be simple and relevant. If you are offering multiple products and services, consider separate landing pages for different topics and ensure your site is responsive. People will not wait 20-30 seconds for it to load. They’ll just go elsewhere.
Alternatives
Don’t underestimate the power and reach of traditional media. Coverage of your business in the media is invaluable.
Making money
Once your site has a high customer access and/or a large targeted customer database, you can seek other sources of revenue. These include advertisements on your site or newsletter or – for ecommerce sites – adding vendors who will manage the products while you take a commission. There are other options available to business but this is a good start for SMEs.
Sometimes you just have to be silly
I don't usually forward on emails, but sometimes things are just so funny that you have to share them.
I was a bit of a Chuck Norris fan when I was a kid, so I really cracked up when I saw this site
