As we move to a period of less face-to-face contact, there is a growing need to make better use of video conferencing tools like Zoom. However, I’m finding that there is a large number of people that are unsure of how to make the best use of Zoom or even how to use it all.
The following documents and videos are aimed at the Business Owner who would like to use Zoom to communicate with clients, suppliers and/or remote team members.
DOCUMENT #1 – A simple guide for using Zoom for remote communication.
DOCUMENT #2 – Logging onto Zoom for the first time [This is a document that you can forward to external parties with some simple instructions and links to instructional videos].
VIDEO #1 – Using Zoom for remote communication. This is a video summary of Document #1
VIDEO #2 – How to use Zoom for the first time. Watch this short video from Russell Cummings, Business Coach, if you’re a first time Zoom User.
VIDEO #3 – How to use Zoom with slow speed internet. This is for users who may have slow internet and will help them have better meeting.
VIDEO #4 – How to log onto a Zoom Meeting using your mobile phone.
Marketing is one of the most important and time-consuming activities of business owners as we all want the right image for our business and more of the right clients. We want them to not only see but to also understand what our business offers and how they can differentiate us from our competitors.
That’s what Marketing is all about. It is creating specific brand images in the minds of our target customers and advertising is the mechanism used to communicate these images to them.
Unfortunately, most businesses do not have a formal marketing plan and their marketing and advertising becomes a series of uncoordinated events. Businesses are often talked into advertising programs that are not linked to any marketing plan.
So how do we avoid falling into that trap? It is important to note that the secret is in coordinating a sequence of activities targeted at clear customer segments and that there is no magic one event in a marketing campaign that works all the time, every time. It is a process of trial and error.
American advertising guru, Ian Ogilvy, made the famous remark “I know that 50% of my advertising budget is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which 50%”. So with that, here’s a process that will help to ensure that you do not waste your money.
Step 1 – Set Objectives
Set clear objectives and start with your Business Plan. Decide whether marketing activities are for the purpose of “brand awareness” or a “call to action”. Take note that both have different response times. Highlight tangible benefits that make your products, services and you different.
Step 2 – Test
Test your message before committing to it with a sample size of at least 30 responses. Gather responses and build in a response mechanism to your ads. Google Adwords can be a cheap & effective method for doing this.
Step 3 – Do It
Run the ads, conduct the promotional workshop, use the script, put up the sign, make the offer, etc.
Step 4 – Measure Effectiveness
After implementing Step 3, determine following:
Was the communication received and understood by the target market?
Were the sales objectives achieved?
You may never fully solve Ian Ogilvy’s dilemma, but follow this process and you will do much better than he did.
In a recent blog we discussed how we can make sure that marketing is effective for our business. This blog reiterates that while you need ensure the effectiveness of your Marketing, it is also crucial to ensure that it is effective all-year round.
Businesses will often gear up for events such as Christmas, Mother’s day, Father’s day, Stocktake Sales and the like, and then accept that there are quieter periods in the rest of the year. But really, this should not be the case. What can we do to market all-year round?
Let’s look to multinational companies to explore this issue. It gets hard to compete when you are reacting all the time to promotions of big players and you feel you have to follow. Unfortunately, most businesses react by putting on sales which may actually reduce your profits due to the size of the discounts offered to get a response from the price conscious customers.
But we have to realize that the thing that makes multinationals successful in marketing is that they know how to make their customers think that everything is for sale all the time. How do they do this?
Here are 3 steps to follow.
1. Determine the purpose for the promotion
Knowing the purpose sets the stage for the rest of the promotional plan because it lets everyone involved understand what it is for and why the outcome should be successful. Also, tell all your staff about the promotion and ask for their ideas.
2. Set specific targets
Setting specific targets allows you to focus your marketing dollars and your message on a specific area that is more likely to act on your promotion i.e. your loyal customers. Plan your advertising to match the customer – this is a much efficient way to increase sales, target margins and sell specific products or services.
Make sure you’re running and interesting promotion and not just discount sales. Why not try to package your products to see how your customers react to this kind of offer?
3. Evaluate the success of your promotion
If it clicks, identify how you can measure if it was a successful promotion. Identify a specific increase in sales needed to compensate for any decrease in the price. And in the end, make sure you evaluate the overall success of the promotion.
Now, here are 8 questions that can determine whether your marketing activities are worth your time and money. In our experience, if your score is below 48 then you are not getting value for money for your advertising, and your result will be mixed.
Rate yourself on these 8 questions by scoring 0 to 10, with 0 – lowest; 5 – average, with some ideas in writing; 10 – strongly planned, well organized:
Use the result as a guide for the things you need to improve on to make sure you’re running successful and effective marketing activities that can stand any season or any event.
Remember that successful marketing is the backbone of a business and will determine your financial future.
Russ was interviewed on OKRs as part of the GTMHub Podcast series on OKRs and performance measurement in business. In this interview, Russ covers a lot of ground like the ways OKRs can help small businesses, a walk through of how to cascade OKRs, how to approach tracking metrics when you’re first starting out and the dangers of being efficient in the wrong places at the wrong times.
0:00 Intro
2:00 Russell Cummings’ background
5:02 Challenges small and big companies
7:30 2 ways to use OKRs in a small businesses
16:20 Best business practices
20:40 Stop and prop
21:24 Forcefield analysis
23:23 Engaging employees
27:38 Growing 2-20 million dollar companies
32:50 Stories of success
44:46 Rapid fire questions
50:30 Outro
Social Media has played a part in most businesses since it was invented but still the sentiment in the business world about social media tends to be divided.
There are those who think it’s an enormous waste of time, who choose to ignore social media and risk being left behind completely because they are alienating internet savvy customers and future employees in the process.
And then there are those who embrace it fully – those that have a clear, strategic social media plan and gain enormous competitive advantage by using the right tools to suit their business and target market.
But what is Social Media?
Social media, in simple terms, is the term used to describe the tools people are using to share text, video, images and information online and the networks they are using to connect with each other. It’s the evolution of the internet from a broadcast medium to a massive online conversation where free, easy to use tools, available 24/7, give users the ability to share and spread information (both good and bad) quicker than any other communication channel.
While the Social Media tools are simple, aligning them with the organisation can be complex. Organisations that jump without strategic thought will waste a lot of time because they have no overall plan and are caught up with the different forms of social media available.
Here are 10 tips to consider when developing the social media strategy for your organisation:
1. Start using social media tools internally to improve communication between team members and your best customers. Take advantage of collaboration tools such as Basecamp HQ or meeting/IM tools like Gotomeeting, VSee and Skype.
2. Write a social media policy for yourself, your employees and where appropriate for customers and partners. Even if your organisation is not officially using social media, chances are your employees are using social media at work so you need a policy. The policy can be short, but should clearly outline how employees should behave online, what they should and shouldn’t say. You may also need a response guide outlining how you will respond to good and bad comments about your organisation online.
3. Start Listening to online conversations. Listen to what the leading organisations in your field are doing, listen to what your customers are saying online, keep up-to-date with industry blogs. There are a myriad of tools available to listen including Google Alerts, Socialmention.com,LinkedIn groups, Twitter search and OpenFacebook Search.
4. Know exactly who you are targeting – Where are they online? How do they communicate? What are they doing online? Why will they listen to and eventually buy from you? You will already know a lot of this about your existing customers. Often sending out a well-structured survey on surveymonkey.com will provide you with more clues as to where and what you should be communicating. Combine this with point 3 and you are on your way.
5. Start responding on specific industry blogs, joining Twitter discussions, commenting on Youtube, and slideshare.net or starting discussions on LinkedIn when you have listened and understood what people are saying and where they are saying it. This will give you an
understanding of the tone and topics that interest and engage people, and you will start to get noticed by the online influencers in your industry.
6. Choose your tools and set up your initiatives. After you’ve done the research, you will by now have a feel for which tools, initiatives and type of content best suit your customers. It could be blogs, discussion forums, linkedin, facebook, slideshare etc etc. Focus on spreading the content that adds the most value to your target market. Ask customers, partners and others that can add further value to contribute a guest post or video. This fosters community and adds value to the people who visit your online community.
7. Regularly check your analytics to see what is working and not working. Are you achieving your KPIs? Keep doing more of what’s working. If something’s not working change it or stop doing it. See next point.
8. If it’s not working move on. Social media tools are free and quick to set up. The most wasted resource will be the time of you and your team. Once you have a plan for a tool set it up and test it. Find out how much value it can add as quickly as you can. Measure carefully and try different tactics.
9. Connect up the various social media tools so that you only have to create a message once and promote it via all your social media tools and networks. Tools like Hootsuite, Ping.fm, Bit.ly, Tweetdeck and Postling enable you to do this automatically. This ensures you get your message your target audience in multiple places, with little additional effort.
10. Train your team to use the Social Media tools you decide best suit your target market. Trainyour partners and customers on these tools so they understand how to get the best from the information and value you provide.
How has Social Media helped your business? I’d love to hear your thoughts – comment below.
