Importance of Managing Customer Expectations

I've been participating in an interesting discussion in Yahoo Answers of what YA is really all about. Some members are saying that YA should be about the knowledge base, and as such strive first and foremost for the accuracy of the answers given. Others, on the other hand, are saying that YA is all about the user community, sharing knowledge and having fun.

This led me to ask the following questions:

• Do your customers really know what your business is all about?
• Or do they have a different idea or perception about your business?
• And if so, are they frustrated because you are not delivering what they think you should deliver?

From the YA debate, those who think YA should be an accurate knowledge database are frustrated and unhappy with the direction of YA. And unhappy customers leave. Worse, they can tell their network of friends that they are unhappy with the business and why. So instead of losing just 1 customer, you lost 20.

The key is to manage customer expectations, more so if you are a service provider. Expectations , unfortunately, are a scary thing -- they can change and shift any minute depending on the customer's interaction and experience with you.

1. The first step is to understand what your customers really want.

How to do this, of course, is the challenge for small businesses. Big businesses with millions to spare can conduct extensive market research conducted by professional market research companies. A one person business with a startup capital of $5,000 cannot be expected to hire a marketing firm to help create personas of the customers.

Even with a small budget, you can conduct your own survey. One way is to use services such as SurveyMonkey.com where for $19.99 pe month you can run a survey from your website or send the survey to your email list. Even ad agencies such as BurstMedia helps their publishers capture demographic and customer satisfaction information.

You can also encourage and setup a feedback mechanism with your customers. Those feedbacks could be your window as to how customers perceive you.

2. Focus on educating the customers.

Be open about what you are. Tell your customers what you really are about, in your face-to-face interaction with them, or even in your web site. Customers want to know you; they want the human face behind the company.

If you've got additional tips on how to manage customer expectations, I'd love to hear them. Please email them to me.

How to Provide Excellent Service

According to Bob Livingston, author of the book "How Do You Do ... What Do You Do," excellent service is

"... all about finding ways to make the other person you are serving feel good about your product or service, your company and themselves because they feel good about dealing with you."

He offers what he calls a roadmap on how to provide "service excellence." Read about his approach in the article "Service Excellence: How Do You Do ... What Do You Do"

The Secret to Perfect Search Engine Marketing

Mark Simon wrote a very interesting piece on how to handle paid search in the article "The Secret to Perfect SEM? It's in the Mail".

According to Simon, you can have a good paid search campaign if you understand the similarities between search marketing and direct mail:

• Importance of targeting: A successful direct mail campaign starts with the right targeting, the right lists, and the right data. Targeting is likewise crucial to search marketing, from reaching searchers based on geography or market area, day of the week, and other variables.
• The pull of envelopes and letters: For direct mail to work, the recipient must be enticed enough with the envelope and open the letter. In search marketing, the ad copy replaces the envelope and the landing page is the letter. The landing page must contain the right incentive, whether it is price, selection, convenience, or quality.

Read the full article "The Secret to Perfect SEM? It's in the Mail".

Using Social Media: PowerHomeBiz.com in Facebook

PowerHomeBiz.com has finally created its page on the social networking site Facebook today. It will be fun to connect to home business entrepreneurs and those who are thinking of starting their own businesses.

Initially, the PowerHomeBiz.com page will feature feeds from this blog, our recent articles and hopefully contribution from fans and other users. Later, we will offer free downloads to courses and ebooks we've developed.

I was inspired to create my own profile, as well as that of PowerHomeBiz.com's page on Facebook from an article I read on eM+C magazine. The article was an interview with Chad Ciesil of the marketing firm WhittmanHart Interactive on tips for entering the social media space, and here are the tips given:

• Basic rule: Listen to your consumers and let them be your guide.
• Define your consumer; don't create an experience that will please everyone
• Narrow your focus based on who are your heavy users and influencers
• Understand how your consumers live and peruse social media
• Become a valued participant in your consumer's social media experience
• Engage in the dialogue to positively influence consumer perceptions of your brand
• Faciliate conversation with your consumers in a relaxed and friendly manner
• Be friendly, be fun, be interesting, be unique
• Learn how to identify your brand enthusiasts and pull them further into your brand
• Experiment, explore and navigate

That's a long list of things to remember, but I hope our Facebook interaction will be a blast! So I hope that you visit the page and connect to me as well as to the PowerHomeBiz.com page in Facebook.

Please visit the PowerHomeBiz.com page and my Facebook profile page at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1203388202 . See you there!

The Importance of Analyzing Your Web Statistics

I'm a big web analytics person. In fact, most of the work I do for others is to analyze web analytics and help them understand what it means for their businesses.

Web analytics is a powerful tool that can help you slice and dice numbers to understand your customers: what they want, what they don't want, who are bringing you traffic, who are bringing you the best source of traffic, etc. I've worked with softwares such as the insanely expensive HBX (now Omniture), WebTrends, Urchin before it was purchased by Google, and the best free stats of all -- Google Analytics.

Traffic analysis goes beyond looking at visits, uniques and pageviews. Your objective is to be able to provide a website that addresses the needs of your target audience, and in by ensuring a positive user experience, they will reward you with their loyalty to your site.

The first step is to clarify your goals. Afterall, without goals, how would you know how to get to where you want to go. These conversion goal can be sales, newsletter sign up, advertising purchase, ebook download, etc.

So what information can web analytics give you?

• Who are referring traffic to you? The traffic referrals data can help shape your marketing plan. Is Yahoo bringing you so little traffic; and if so, how can you optimize your site for Yahoo? Are social bookmarking sites such as Stumbleupon or Digg bringing you a lot of visitors; then is it worth your time to focus on them? How about your PPC campaigns?
• Going deeper to the referral numbers, what is the quality of visitors your traffic referrers are giving you? Look at the bounce rates. Are Yahoo Answers visitors staying longer in your site, perusing more pages and have a low bounce rate (percent of visitors who only visit one page of your site and leave immediately)? Are you getting a lot of Stumbleupon visitors, yet bounce rate is a high 90% which means that 9 out 10 leave your site immediately?
• Who among your traffic sources are bringing you the sales? Set a conversion goal, if your web analytics allow for it (if not, then change to a software that offers this functionality such as Google Analytics). Look at where these visitors who buy or subscribe to your newsletter come from.
• Of those who buy from you or perform your conversion goals, what else differentiates them aside from where they come from? What pages did they go first? Are there particular pages that act as bottlenecks?
• What content do visitors like? If you are running an information based site, what type of content do your visitors read the most? The create more of those pages. Or market the pages they are not going to at this point and give them more exposure in your pages as well as in your marketing activities. If you are earning via Adsense, for example, analyze which pages bring you the most revenues, and build more of those pages as well.
• If you are running pay per click or banner advertising, which creative actually brings you your goal?
• If you have an email newsletter, what types of subject lines get the most open rates, most clicks, and most forwarding to friends?

There is so much more to learn about web analytics. You can read more about using web analytics to improve your site in our Web Metrics and Site Performance Analysis

The Art of Saying "Thank You"

Everyone loves to feel appreciated and valued. It's human nature. We love to hear how important we are to other people, how much they value our friendship, and how much they want and need our company. And most of all, we love to hear the words "Thank you."

As a business owner, do you say "Thank you" to your customers? Do you tell them how much you appreciate their patronage and loyalty?

Me, I'm a sucker for thank yous. I love to receive thank you notes, or even thank you emails. And I am particularly appreciative of businesses who say "thank you" to me because I purchased from them.

But how do you say "thank you" to your customers?

Let's take a look at this thank you email I got from Art.com for having purchased some art work from them:

This "thank you" note has two elements:

• the warm and fuzzy note of appreciation for the purchase
• an offer to purchase more

The offer is actually very important. In this case, it was free shipping. Considering that sending a framed picture can be expensive, the free shipping really helps lower the cost. Of course, I took the offer and ordered again :o)

Don't send a message without making an offer. It's your opportunity to connect with your customers, and you will be wasting that opportunity if you do not ask them to come back and purchase more from you. The offer can be a discount, a free gift, free shipping, or anything! The key is: never forget to include an offer.

As our mama taught us, saying "thank you" is not only polite, but also a smart business thing to do. Next time someone makes a purchase from you, be nice and say "thank you" to them.

43 Website Features of Top Online Retailers

Ever wonder what sets big businesses apart from small businesses? Of course they have the resources, and with it they can get the best talents and top-of-the-line technology to outsell othe retailers and develop features that can only turn a small business green with envy.

Take a look for example at online businesses. Beyond their sleek and professional design, leading online retailers use a number of features and functionalities that sets them apart. Some of these features are something small businesses can adopt, while others are certainly beyond the reach of small online retailers:

1. 360-degree view
2. Advanced search
3. Affiliate program
4. Auction
5. Blogs
6. Catalog quick order
7. Color swatching
8. Coupons/rebates
9. Customer reviews
10. Daily/seasonal specials
11. Dynamic imaging
12. Email a friend
13. Enlarged product view
14. Frequent buyer program
15. Frequently asked questions
16. Gadgets
17. Guided navigation
18. Interactive catalog
19. Interactive kiosks
20. Keyword search
21. Mapping
22. Mobile commerce
23. Mouseover
24. Online circular
25. Online gift certificates
26. Outlet center
27. Pre-orders
28. Product comparisons
29. Product customizations
30. Product ratings
31. Product recommendations
32. Product wikis
33. Registry
34. Site personalization
35. Social networking
36. Store locator
37. Syndicated content
38. Top sellers
39. Videocasts
40. What's new
41. Widgets
42. Wish Lists
43. Zoom

Top Products Sold on the Internet

I just got my copy of the Internet Retailer's Top 500 Guide Report (2008) http://www.internetretailer.com/top500/ and the report has a lot of interesting data on selling online.

Using 2007 data, the top product categories in terms of sales and the top 2 ecommerce merchants for that category are:

• Mass Merchant/Department Store = $29.309 billion [Amazon.com; Sears.com]
• Computers/Electronics = $23.337 billion [Dell; HP Home and Home Office Store]
• Office supplies = $13.970 billion [Staples; Office Depot]
• Apparel/Accessories = $12.359 billion [Victoria's Secret; LL Bean]
• Books/Music/Video = $4.142 billion [Netflix; Blockbuster]
• Housewares/Home furnishings = $3.891 billion [Williams Sonoma; Crate and Barrel]
• Specialty/Non apparel = $3.416 billion [Musician's Frend Inc.; Oriental Trading]
• Health/Beauty = $2.453 billion [Quixtar; Avon]
• Food/Drug = $2.372 billion [Drugstore.com; Peapod]
• Sporting Goods = $1.535 billipn [Cabela's Inc; Recreational Equipment]
• Hardware/Home Improvement = $1.366 [Home Depot; Lowe's]
• Flowers/Gifts = $1.350 billion [1-800-Flowers.com; FTD Group]
• Toys/Hobbies = $1.123 billion [Toys R'Us; American Girl]
• Jewelry = $1.051 billion [Blue Nile; Bidz.com]

60 Time-Tested Marketing Offers

What type of offers from marketers do you respond to?

For me, I love free bags from fashion magazines subscriptions, and free cosmetics from beauty brands. I also love free shipping and discount coupons I get from retailers. I also love the rewards program of retailers as well as all the discounts I can get. Basically, I love anything that can save me money.

As a marketer, there are a wide number of offers that you can offer your customers to increase response, average amount per sale, and increase transactions. Whether free stuff, rebates, free shipping or guarantees, here are some of these time tested marketing offers:

1. Freebies or bonus products = buy the product and get other products for free; such as ebook sellers offering 10 bonuses in addition to the ebook
2. Free gift card = typically subject to purchase of x amount of items. Example is
3. Free trial = allowing the consumer to test, try and use the product for free. Cosmetic companies do this by giving away smaller (trial) sizes of their products
4. Free subscription
5. Free downloads = software companies allow users to download and use the software for x number of times/days before the trial period expires and a paid version must be purchased
6. Complementary in-home consultation = offered by service businesses wherein the business will offer the first visit/consultation for free.
7. Free cost estimates = normally given by service companies such as contractors, they will come to the customer for free, assess the site and the work needed to be done, and give the customer a free quotation or estimate
8. Free gift with purchase
9. Free needs survey
10. Free disposal - for products being replaced such as appliances
11. Free/Instant rebates
12. No payments/no interest for x number of months = for businesses that provide financing options
13. Choice of Free gift
14. Stepped Free gifts
15. Samples
16. Free shipping = offered by online or catalog/mail order companies whereby shipping is offered to the customer for free
17. Free shipping after $X amount of purchase = free shipping only after the desired minimum order amount is reachesd ($25 free super shipping of Amazon, or Gap.com's free shipping for orders $100 for Gap cardmembers)
18. Gift shipment options
19. Rush shipping service
20. Upgrade shipping
21. Discounts for Bundled purchase = practiced by Amazon.com, this retailer ofers a small discount for purchasing the recommended item instead of simply the original item the customer wants
22. Free keeper gift
23. Sweepstakes and contests
24. Money-back guarantee = to show the marketer's confidence that the customer will love their products, this is a simple guaratee wherein a refund will be made if the customer is not satisfied with a product or service.
25. Long term guarantee
26. Double your money back guarantee
27. Relationship discount = discounts given to existing customers in order to entice them to order again
28. Price matching
29. Negative option = favored by mail order book clubs, this is the practice in which goods or services are provided automatically, and the customer has the option of paying for the item or service or decline it before billing
30. Positive Option
31. Reservation option
32. Quantity discount = price reduction given to large purchases
33. Limited time offers = designed to create urgency to the consumers to buy, marketers offer special discounts or freebies thrown in but only for a small window of opportunity
34. Refer-a-member or member-get-member
35. Price increase announcement
36. Price matching
37. Introductory Price
38. Last chance
39. Early bird discount
40. Trade in offer
41. Enrollment Period
42. Prepublication Offer
43. Charter membership
44. Payment with order
45. Bill me later
46. Installments
47. Lay away plan
48. Cumulative Incentives
49. Deluxe version
50. Shop till Forbid
51. Annual Membership Fee
52. Lifetime Membership Fee
53. Load ups
54. Yes/No
55. Yes/Maybe
56. Dollars Off
57. Limited Edition
58. Bounce back
59. Loyalty offers: lower prices for repeat or multiple purchase/visits/usage of service
60. Themed promotions such as special hotel packages inclusive of golf or free sports gear package for sport court installation

Green Marketing for Small Businesses

Green marketing is the new "in" thing.

Celebrities like Cameron Diaz and Leonardo di Caprio prefer to drive hybrid cars. HGTV channel is giving away a "green" home. Ikea has done away with the free plastic bags. Crate and Barrel is marketing ecofriendly furnitures. Name it -- from baby clothes to appliances to home furnishings to food -- "green" is the main thing.

According to Good and Green http://www.goodandgreen.biz/, which sponsors the Green Marketing Conference, an increasing number of consumers are embracing green marketing:

• In the US, the Green Marketplace is conservatively pegged at $250 million - and growing!
• Over 66% of Americans believe "Doing well by doing good is a savvy business strategy."
• Over the past five years the sales of organic and all natural products have increased 18% to 25% year over year.
• 30% of American consumers are willing to pay up to a 20% premium on clean, green products over non-sustainable alternatives ... and that number grows each year.

So how can small businesses ride this growing crest of green marketing?

According to Jacqueline Ottman, author of Green Marketing: Opportunity for Innovation , there are five rules for green marketing :

• Customers should know and care about the environmental issues your products address
• Make customers feel empowered that they can help address the environmental issues when they buy your products
• Ensure credibility and legitimacy of your claims by being transparent
• Reassure the buyer that your products work, in addition to being environmentally friendly
• Given that environmentally-friendly products are often priced at a premium, consider whether your price range is something customers are still willing to pay

Business.gov offers additional resources and information on how to start an eco-friendly business.

Basics of Factoring

If you are trying to raise cash for your existing business, one way is through factoring or accounts receivable financing. With factoring, a business can receive immediate cash for its accounts receivable. This option works best if you cannot get secured commercial debt or if you are not willing to give up shares of your company.

If this is a financing option you'd like to consider for your business, read the article "Basics of Factoring: What Every Business Owner Needs to Know About Factoring." The article discusses when a business is right for factoring, how factoring works, pros and cons of this financing strategy, and how factoring compares to other financing options.

AddThis: Helping Your Content Go Viral

We have tested several widgets at PowerHomeBiz.com to make it easy for users to share our content, and tap Web 2.0 sites to increase our traffic. And the tool we love the most -- and using more extensively is AddThis http://www.addthis.com/

AddThis is a simple widget that you put into your site or blog, and visitors can bookmark, share or email your content. If you're looking at a way to get your content into MySpace, Digg, Stumbleupon and other Web 2.0 sites, AddThis is a tool that can help you

What we liked about AddThis is its ease of use. Setting an account is very easy, and grabbing the widget is a breeze. You don't have to be a techie to actually understand how it works, and grab the code to be put to your site.

The reports are also done almost in real time, and you can find out the URL of your content that has been shared by a user, and what service did the user shared it to.

But of course, it's not without its kinks:

• You can't know and track the URLs that have been emailed by users. You also won't know the email addresses of the sender and the recipient that some email share-to-a-friend scripts can show you.
• There's tendency to show false positives, and therefore inflated reports (just hope that it's not 100% inflated reports). A user can click on share to Stumbleupon, but for some reason, the user failed to login to his Stumbleupon account thereby failing to share the content in Stumbleupon. But AddThis will already read the fact that the buttom was clickd on as a success and report that the URL was shared in Stumbleupon
• Sharing blog posts can be a bit screwy. Sometimes the URL will not be reported in your account and instead will show this data:post.title/. This is also the URL automatically posted into the user form, so unless the user removed this message and replaced it with the actual URL then it becomes a worthless share

But even with the above kinks, AddThis is a great tool for sharing your site and helping it go viral

Grandparents: How to Reach this Market for Your Business

Grandparents are a huge market to tap, whether you are directly targeting them for your seniors travel business or indirectly for your children's toys business.

Estimates from different surveys show that there are anywhere from 30 to over 70 million of grandparents in the United States alone, and a sizeable portion of these grandparents take care of their grandkids for various reasons. The National Mail Order Association has collected a great deal of data on grandparents

According to GRAND magazine , the demographic characteristics of grandparents are:

• average age of first time grandparents is 47
• over 70 million grandparents
• 4,000 baby boomers become grandparents every day
• over 75% of the 50+ market are grandparents
• 77% of the nation's wealth and 50% discretionary spending come from this group
• annual spending on grandchildren alone top $70 billion

Given the above numbers, grandparents are a great market for children's products. They buy cribs, baby clothes, strollers, and other baby items as gifts to their grandkids. Others buy these items for the use of their grandkids when they visit the grandparents' homes, so the parents don't have to carry all these things. There are also others who buy baby items because the babies and kids live with the grandparents.

According to The Grandparent Study 2002 Report from AARP , the top reasons grandparents spend money on their children are birthday gifts (97%), holiday gifts such as Christmas, Hanukah, or Kwanzaa (96%), because they enjoy buying things for grandchildren (93%) and to entertain or have fun with their grandchildren (90%).

Aside from spending for their grandchildren, grandparents also spend on cars, vacation homes, travel, insurance products, financial products, and others. They are also concerned with their health and ensuring quality lifestyles -- and that means they are a good market for organic foods, vitamins, exercise equipment.

To reach this huge market, here are suggestions from the experts:

• Target Magazine (July 2007) says that grandparents do not want to be told how to be a good grandparent as they have already raised families. They respond to messages "about enriching their relationships with their grandchildren."
• According to Focalyst in their study "Meet the Grandparents", grandparents are plugged and are online. About 60% of grandparents surveyed cited the Internet as their top source for information and advice, and they are emailing their friends and families at least three to five times a week. Marketing to this group should be done online.
• Many of the buying decisions are done by women, so it is a good idea to target grandmothers in your campaigns.

How to Start a Bookstore Business

The book selling business is a very competitive business. The intense competition from online giant Amazon.com plus the big bookstore chains such as Barnes and Noble and Borders has put huge pressures on profit margin and made it difficult for independent booksellers to thrive.

But if you have been dreaming of starting a bookstore, I suggest you start by getting a copy of the book FabJob Guide to Become a Bookstore Owner and other books on the topic. These books are comprehensive and will guide you to some critical decision making needed when starting a bookstore

Then make sure you attend the Book Expo America, which will be held in LA this year on May 29 - June 1 http://www.bookexpoamerica.com/ -- this is the PERFECT place to meet publishers big and small, and start setting up accounts with these publishing houses. I've attended several of these in recent years, and it is one big event where both big publishers to independent publishers gather. It is a must-attend for every bookseller.

Also be sure to check out the resources provided by the following organizations:

• American Booksellers Association http://www.bookweb.org/index.html
• Book Industry Study Group http://www.bisg.org/
• Bowker's Bookwire (for book industry statistics and news) http://www.bookwire.com/

One important aspect of starting a bookstore is developing relationships with book wholesalers and distributors. Determine the major and minor book suppliers that you want to purchase from. Then inquire how you can become a customer, and if you need to go through a credit approval process. They will give you their catalogs from which you can order your inventory. The largest book wholesalers are Ingram Book Group and Baker & Taylor, but if you want to specialize in children's books, contact the Children's Book Council .