Sky Soft Consulting Blog – Anything about website, social media, and business.
Deep discounting with online services like Groupon and LivingSocial allows retailers a way to quickly attract new customers, and many retailers have jumped on the daily deals bandwagon.
Here Michael Koploy, ERP Analyst at Software Advice writes Three Steps Approach for Retail Loyalty Program Success.
If you are interested to create a great Loyalty Program for your business, you should check out his great article in this matter.
On May 10th, Microsoft announced its whopping $8.5 billion-dollar purchase of Skype. Why would the software giant pay such a princely sum for a company that had suffered $689 million dollars worth of losses in the previous year? Put simply, because Skype has lived up to its stated purpose: “to break down barriers in communication.” For eight years, the VOIP provider has been on the leading edge of harnessing Internet technology to allow people to connect with one another across the globe.
Let’s look at three communication barriers Skype’s innovations have helped to break down and how leaders must learn to overcome similar communication challenges.
Distance
When phone customers dial to a destination outside of their network, rates skyrocket due to the connection fees required to route to the originating call to its intended recipient. Also, as anyone who has ever been billed roaming charges can attest, making calls when traveling across international borders incurs substantial costs. By translating voice waves into data packets and transferring them across the World Wide Web, Skype circumvented pricey dimensions of international calling.
Distance acts as a barrier to communication for leaders who face the challenge of casting vision to a network of middle managers, front line workers, customers, and partners. The farther the vision must travel, the weaker it becomes. When the leader at the top is the only one who can express the vision, he or she has little to no chance of seeing it spread throughout the organization. However, by equipping and empowering leaders at all levels to articulate the vision in a compelling way, the best communicators overcome the distance separating them from their audience.
Cost
Not only does Skype reduce surcharges associated with long-distance calls across international boundaries, it allows any customers to get in touch with anyone, anywhere for no cost whatsoever. Skype decided to keep its basic communication service and software free for users. As a result, people can chat with one another, for free, from anyplace on the globe as long as they are connected to the Internet. By making its basic product free, Skype attracted millions of users. Then, Skype marketed extra services like ringtones, voicemail, and group video calling to earn its revenues.
Obviously, a product has far greater appeal when its manufacturers have figured out how to remove costs so that customers can access the product with little to no expense. Communication works much the same way. An audience will only invest a certain amount of energy to understand a message. The more time and attention people must pay to absorb what you say, the fewer people will connect with your message. As a communicator, you must eliminate the costs upfront by investing your time and energy to make the message simple, to put it in context, and to share it in a creative and entertaining way.
Diverse Audiences
People use a variety of electronic devices to communicate with one another, thus any application designed for widespread usage must function across a variety of platforms. Skype has been engineered to work well on a wide range of gadgets. Thanks to its flexibility, Microsoft can employ Skype to help its customers connect across several platforms: personal computers, smartphones, email clients, gaming consoles, etc. With Skype, people no longer are limited to calling one another on a phone, but they can talk together while playing video games or surfing the Internet, too.
Just as Skype has learned to tailor its product to appeal to customers using a variety of communication channels so leaders must broadcast their messages in several different ways to connect with diverse audiences. Not everyone loves to read books; some people obtain and retain information better by watching videos or participating in learning exercises. Leaders who communicate the most effectively deliver their messages in numerous formats and share those messages across a wide assortment of platforms. By communicating through outlets familiar to their audience, leaders “speak their language,” and influence the greatest possible number of people.
Source: John C. Maxwell
A new company of interest launched in the competitive daily deals space last week. Called Booqoos, the Austin, Texas-based startup aims to offer a better way for merchants and consumers to manage online deals.
For merchants, Booqoos claims to provide a powerful platform with complete control and self-management of deals to suit individual business goals, and instant distribution through multiple channels. For consumers, Booqoos aggregates deals from other sites, as well its own, creating a one-stop shop with the ability to search by location, date and product/service category.
Booqoos’ do-it-yourself platform claims to be a smarter choice for local small and medium-sized businesses. Unlike other deal sites, Booqoos aims to be more than a discount solution for merchants: instead striving to be a full marketing platform that gives businesses unparalleled control over their deals.
With Booqoos, merchants have the power to:
• Self-manage deals— Create deals with no minimum required discount, place caps on the number of deals available, plan deals up to a year in advance, and distribute them to consumers via email, social media and/or Booqoos.com all in one click
• Feature multiple deals— Present multiple deals at once; package deals to upsell slow-moving items or excess inventory
• Optimize scheduling— Set up traditional open-ended coupons or offer deals available only for specific, scheduled time slots to increase business during slower times
• Avoid deep cuts into profit margins— Post a deal at half the cost of other deal sites and customize it to meet the business’ unique needs
“Booqoos is better for businesses, and better for buyers,” co-founder Tina Cannon says. “It gives merchants the flexibility to optimize deals to better suit their needs and gives shoppers an easy-to-use platform that cuts down on the clutter and confusion of countless deal emails.”
Source: Website Magazine
The social network businesspeople may be most familiar with is LinkedIn. This network of over 101 million business users and more than 1 million business profile pages can be an important resource.
To get started using LinkedIn for your business, it is best to set up and complete a personal profile for yourself as well as a company profile for your business.
When setting up these profiles, remember to include all important information such as your website and blog URLs.
Additionally, it is important to take the time to make the descriptions for you and your business interesting to read and an accurate reflection of your experience, knowledge, and passion.
LinkedIn Groups.
Once you have created profiles, LinkedIn has two major features that are of particular use to businesses and their employees. The first feature you should examine is the Groups feature. The Groups feature allows LinkedIn users to create and participate in discussions around a topic within LinkedIn. Groups can be a great way to make potential business connections, but can also be a great place to share relevant blog content.
LinkedIn Answers.
The second feature, LinkedIn Answers, allows you to find people publicly stating they have a specific problem or need that your product or service would solve. Identifying these questions and responding with a resources or a blog article of yours that answers that person’s need can offer a great marketing opportunity for your business. Ultimately, you can generate high-quality traffic to your blog from LinkedIn Answers, and get some really qualified leads as well.
It’s obvious that mobile platforms are becoming more and more of a consideration when it comes to internet marketing. The growth of the iPhone is going to continue, with reports showing that Verizon may sell as many as 13 million iPhones in 2011.
If you are trying to market on the mobile web, you need to consider the importance of creating entertaining and quality content that can be easily consumed on mobile devices such as smartphones or tablet computers.
Optimize for Mobile.
Mobile marketing is being tossed around frequently in marketing circles, often with many different intended meanings. While mobile marketing can mean many things, there is one primary message being conveyed for marketers looking to take advantage of mobile: optimize for mobile devices.
While developing a mobile application relative to your business is another option, most businesses are still just ramping-up their internet marketing efforts and do not have enough content to support a mobile application. Additionally, many marketers would be better off optimizing their SEO, email, lead nurturing, and social media campaigns for maximum lead generation before taking on yet another major project such as a mobile application.
For those internet marketers just getting started with mobile, the important thing to focus on is making sure your website is easy to view and navigate when accessed on mobile devices.
Northwest Center for Change offers comprehensive outpatient services to individuals and their families who are struggling with chemical dependency. Their long-term approach, along with family participation, is unique and proven to increase.
We are glad that they wanted us to help them with their website redesign needs and also online marketing strategies.
Please follow the progress here.
When thinking about blogging, take off your hat as a business owner or marketing manager and instead try to think like a magazine publisher.
The goal of your business blog should be to publish articles that are not promotional but instead share industry expertise, much in the way a column or an article in an industry magazine would.
Think about what you are writing and the words you are using. Don’t use industry jargon that only you and your employees would understand. Just as you did when brainstorming keywords, think of the words your customers would use to describe your business and use those keywords in your blog posts.
The Duwamish Yacht Club was established in 1978 on its location 4.5 miles up the Duwamish River from Elliott Bay in the South Park Community of Seattle.
The club decided to redesign their website and also by adding more features (member portal, calendar, online sign up for event, etc) for their members.
You can follow the progress here.
How to Deal with Negative Comments
If you have been blogging for a while, you have probably felt the frustration associated with negative comments. If you are new to blogging, you probably fear receiving biting criticism. But you might be surprised to learn that negative comments can sometimes be a good thing.
Understand the Criticism.
When you have somebody who is thoughtfully critical of you, respond to them and show that your organization is human and you are a caring person. Critical comments can spark meaningful and authentic discussions. Responding to them shows that you are attentive to the remarks of others and that you are not just rambling in a vacuum.
React in the Same Channel.
It is always a good idea to react in the same media that the comment was made in. If someone posts a tweet, tweet back at them. If they leave a blog comment, comment on the same post. Pay attention to people’s preferred method of communication and continue the dialogue on that platform.
Don’t Respond to Bullies.
If it is a thoughtful comment, it deserves a response. If it is a bully and all they are trying to do is bully you, you don’t have to respond to that. Trust your guts to evaluate if a comment is attacking you or your argument. If the commenter is being insulting without providing any meaningful criticism, feel free to ignore them.