Are You Creating the Right Stuff for Your Clients?

This is a funny video and it conjures up various feelings in everyone who watches it. However, it also highlights some major flaws in true, reliable, customer service. As a business owner, are you truly meeting the needs of your customers? There are tons of blog posts and articles on the Internet from business men and women going on and on about nightmare clients and their sometimes ridiculous demands. Many of them are valid rants. However, there are also many of them that may be the direct result of failures on the part of the business owner. This shouldn't be a shocking revelation, but business owners and upper management aren't always innocent. Failure is a part of every occupation, every business, and every person. To deny it would be ridiculous. Knowledge and implementation of knowledge is what reduces the frequency of those failures. As people who are heavily invested in the success of our own companies, we need to make sure that we are doing all we can to properly meet the needs of clients (our customers).

How is your company using the Internet to its advantage?

"The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow." ~Bill Gates

Using Mr. Gates' quote as a focal point, what part of the 'village' are you gearing your products and services to? This is an essential element to consider when creating your marketing and advertising plans. Make sure that your website operates in a way that your customers will "get it" and understand why they should choose to use your services or purchase your products. If customers can interact with your site in a positive way, then your website will be successful.

What's being said about your business on the Internet? Have you looked at Yelp and other review sites to see how people gauge their interaction with your company, your employees or how they perceive the value of your products/services? If you're not checking for those "word of mouth" referrals or unfortunate negative reviews, then you're missing a critical component of being able to provide the "right stuff" to your customers. If you're not listening to them and unwilling to take a look at your internal policies/procedures and quality control standards, then you should just stop reading this article right now.

David Ogilvy, who is considered by many to be the father of modern advertising, always stressed the importance of the "BIG IDEA". He always capitalized those two words in order to make them stand out. Are you doing your best to ensure that your company's customer service, reputation, and quality standards are an integral part of America's economic, political, and social life? What is the BIG IDEA that drives your business? By listening to your clients, understanding their wants and needs, and adapting, you are better able to refine your customer service procedures and better produce the products and services your customers desire. In doing this, you'll be able to convey your company's BIG IDEA in an easier, more effective way.

This isn't an easy task. There isn't one tried and true formula to achieve this - it's more of a mindset and method of operating. In some ways this might seem a bit obtuse and nebulous. The beauty of it though is that this method of operating is one of the major facets of what you'll see when you study the successful models of companies such as Amazon, Dropbox, Google, and others who do a great job of listening and interacting with their customers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heSudg-tfIk.

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The Power of Online Video for Your Company

Using video to promote your website, services, or products has become an integral component of online advertising. With the explosive popularity of sites such as YouTube (now considered the number search engine online), Vimeo, and others - it's time to embrace video and make it work on behalf of your company and your website.

Here are some amazing statistics about online video from 2010:

• 172 million U.S. viewers watched an average of 14.6 hours of video


• Over 40% of consumers watch online videos on a weekly basis - Over 70% watch monthly


• YouTube serves over 1 billion videos per day


• YouTube (owned by Google) is expected to hit $2 billion in revenue during 2011.


• Viral video marketing campaigns increase clickthrough rates by 750%. MarketingExperiments.com, November 2006


• E-commerce sites that use product videos sell up to 45% more. Onlineshoes.com says it sees a 45% higher conversion rate for customers who watch videos on its website. Zappos.com says it sells up to 30% more for products that it shows in videos instead of just static pictures. (Sources: ReelSEO, Internet Retailer)

Online video marketing first surged in 2007 and has been growing exponentially every year since. Over $3 billion was spent on online video advertising during 2010. With online video becoming such a major marketing player, it's an important advertising genre to consider embracing.

Here are a few basic concepts to keep in mind when considering the use of online video to promote your website, company, products, or services.

1. If you're going to create video to showcase a product, your services, or just introduce your business...it has to be creative and compelling. Your video needs to spark some type of emotion from the viewer. Whether it's humorous, intriguing, or somewhat controversial, you need this "hook" to create a clip that people will want to see and recommend to others to watch. The hook is at the core of any good viral campaign. Get creative and come up with a catchy plan!


2. Online video offers another outlet to showcase your brand. Make sure that you include your site logo or company logo on any streaming video that is released. If you create and submit video to video sharing websites or other channels, then using branded video clips will further increase your website and company exposure to potential customers.


3. Testimonials. These are incredibly popular and important. Again, they need to be genuine and not manufactured. By having real customers discuss why they chose your products or services and how it has been beneficial to them displays a great deal of credibility for your company. These are the videos that you will definitely want to promote on multiple social media sites!


4. Be genuine and real. If you are going to create a video about your company...film your real employees, in your office, doing real work. Don't "manufacture" a video that is fake and staged. People will see right through it.


5. Use video as a platform for your products. Show people how they work. Detail how and why your product is superior to competitors and why people should purchase your products. Highlight the benefits that customers will receive by purchasing your products.


6. If your business is service oriented, then show viewers how your services are performed. Explain to them what makes your services superior to competitors. Tell them why they should call or email you to procure your services.


7. Webinars (Web Seminars). These are what I like to tag as "stage 2" videos. These are training videos that primarily work best for websites who sell products. These webinars should be created to train your customers on how to properly use your products. Most of the time, this type of video will be much more detailed and involved. However, they are extremely important as well. When a potential customer wants to purchase a product, yet they are unfamiliar on how to effectively use it, they will be reassured to know that you have online videos available to them for additional training.


8. Once you have videos in place, continue to get creative. With the emergence and popularity of QR codes, you can now offer potential customers the ability to watch a video by scanning a QR code with their smartphone. Create and print new business cards for your company that feature a QR Code that card recipients can scan and then watch a video about your company, your products, or whatever you want them to view.

This certainly isn't an exhaustive list by any stretch. However, I hope it will compel you to think about the myriad of ways that online video can be beneficial to your company. With the constant expansion of Internet users each year, creative marketing is going to always be needed in order to succeed in the World Wide Web. Online video is emerging as one of the best and most effective ways to reach potential customers. So...grab on to it and use it creatively!

Color Card Administrator is the parent company of PrintBusinessCards.com and several other innovative Real Estate Business Cards website, we're eager to share with you what it is we do. Give us a call today at 858-522-9335 or email at Author@CardAdmin.com for Real Estate Business Cards. We look forward to discussing your comments, suggestions, or hearing any ideas for future article topics you may be interested in regarding business cards design or business card management from professional business cards company.