Reynolds Group Blog

The best source of leads for your company is your website. Everyone has one… but is it doing all it can for your business?

Don’t redesign just because you like change or think it is time. Get some facts and then make a decision. If you want to begin the process of redesigning your website, email me your URL at tom@reynoldsgroupweb.com for a free website analysis report.

The sales process starts with your client asking a question: “Where can I find,” “How do I” or “I need help to do X.” So before you build a website, create a flier or write an ad ask yourself what does my customer want or need that I provide. Create your message from their prospective, their questions and their desires… not yours.

Finally, tell it like it is! Be upfront about what you want the customer to do. Burying your intentions at the bottom of the page, not stating exactly what you want or assuming they know what you mean will not get the action you desire.  It is not pushy to be clear and direct.  As my dad use to say, “There is no such thing as hard sell or soft sell… just smart sell or dumb sell.”

Prospecting for business yesterday, one client said, “Stay in touch, we are all in this together.” It struck a chord!  In these strange economic times we need to hang together because the world is not ending–it’s just changing. The lesson is, don’t act alone, build a team.

Here are some ideas: Send me more if you have them!

• Join or be more active in your trade assocation.
• Call your good vendors and see how you can work together better.
• Call your good customers and see how you can work together better.
• When you see an opportunity for another business, let them know, and they will return the favor.
• Find time to help people in your own “backyard”who are less fortunate than you are.

Good deeds are rewarded, and it takes more than one person to “move a mountain.”

Recently my partner Eric Lin and I  built a highend website for Manufacturers Bank (MB) that included a “Business Intelligence System.” It is much more than a static website. It can give real time information to customers, capture and analyze marketing data about visitors, promote banking products, turn prospects into customers, and create detailed reports.  Here is a  partial outline of its advanced features.

Inform

• My MB Business Intelligence Center
• Provide current/ hard-to-find industry intelligence/ articles (PDF/ 3rd-party data feed)
• Provide current industry news (RSS/ 3rd-party data feed)
• Provide industry resources (seminars/ events/ links)
• Recommend relevant/ industry specific MB products
• Empower MB staff to add/ edit/ delete My MB content (Graphic/ RSS/ PDF/ resources)
• Data Source: MB Content Management System (CMS) & 3rd-party data feed

Capture/ Analyze

• My MB Registration Form & MB Business Intelligence System
• Capture user industry category, email and user behavior data
• Cross reference industry, user behavior & customer profile data with product/ customer parameters setup in CMS
• Cross reference MB internal data with product/ customer parameters setup in CMS
• Empower MB staff to add/ edit/ delete product, customer & recommendation parameters VIA CMS
• Data Source: MB Content Management System (CMS), User cookie/ log files & MB internal customer data
• Promote Banking Products
• Dynamic Product Promotion
• Dynamically “Push” relevant product promotions to prospects
• Provide relevant product recommendation based on industry category
• Provide relevant product recommendation based on user behavior
• Provide relevant product recommendation based on customer profile
• Deploy third-party newsletter delivery system to “Pull” prospect into MB website
• Empower MB staff to add/ edit/ delete product promotions VIA CMS

Turn Prospects into Customers

• Multi-Channels User Conversion
• Enable prospects to convert VIA product/ service registration form
• Enable prospects to convert VIA third-party “Call Me” feature
• Resolve prospect questions VIA third-party customer service chat feature

Manage/ Report

• MB Content Management System (CMS)
• Empower MB staff to add/ edit/ delete My MB content (Graphic/ RSS/ PDF/ resources)
• Empower MB staff to add/ edit/ delete product promotions (Graphic/ Ajax/ links)
• Empower MB staff to add/ edit/ delete product parameters
• Empower MB staff to add/ edit/ delete customer parameters
• Empower MB staff to fine-tune product recommendation parameter
• Empower MB staff to track campaigns VIA industry/ visitor/ behavior reports
• Allow reports to export VIA .CSV format

The internet is a great place to look for inspiration.  Besides having great information about how to design websites, Smashing Magazine is a very-cool-place to see what is new in graphic design.  Have fun getting lost in this website!

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/

See the fumy looking guy in the center of this picture….that is Santa alright! I had the privilege of representing the golly old elf at the Holiday Movie children’s event for the Venice Family Clinic this year. Above you can see me, my trusted elves and some children who enjoyed the show and Christmas gifts. It was really fun and all for a great cause!

Here is some info on the event if you would like to learn more.

Merry – Happy!

The Children’s Holiday Movie event benefits the pediatric programs of the Venice Family Clinic. We are pleased to report that this year’s event has raised over $110,000 in proceeds and growing! It’s not too late to make a contribution, if you would like to donate to Children’s Holiday Movie and the Clinic’s pediatric programs please go to www.venicefamilyclinic.org or call my direct line (310) 664-7940. Proceeds are used to improve the lives of over 6,000 children who rely on the Clinic for their medical care. The Clinic provides a wide range of services, from well-baby and well-child exams to chronic diseases management for illnesses such as asthma and diabetes. Venice Family Clinic cares for children year-round, helping them to grow into healthy adults.

Think it over….You want an email address on your website so customers can contact you directly and before you know it you are getting 100 email SPAMs every day.  How do you “make the bad man stop?” 

The problem is SPAMers use little spiders (or bots) to crawl the internet locating emails to SPAM from websites. The people who bring you SPAM have been collecting emails for years and once they get yours it takes a lot of work to turn it off. It is a pain, but worth doing.

If you are an individual or small business here are some suggestions:

1. You can host your own emails. This means buying a dedicated PC and purchasing a hardware solution installed on that computer to stops SPAM.  Besides buying the computer you need someone to set up this PC and maintain it. This will require having an IT person on staff or finding an outside support service. Outside support seems to cost about $120 an hour right now.

2. You can purchase Postini software which is the best online SPAM protection software. You buy a Postini license for each email address in your company and it cost between $5-$10 dollars per email address per month to use.  Every email sent runs through this online software and it sorts out what is SPAM and what is legitimate email. It does a very good job but can slow email transmission speed down.  All email SPAM is saved in a virtual folder which you can check and delete from time to time.

3. A less expensive way to get Postini is to have your website hosted by Clever Concepts http://cleverconcepts.com/ (a Reynolds Group affiliate) who will host your website for under $30 per month and provide Postini for $1.50 per user email address per month. This is a very good solution from a reliable company.

4. Finally, you can try my trick. I was getting 40 spam messages a day on the tom@reynoldsgroupweb.com web email address that is on both the contact page of my website and my calling cards. First, I went to the control panel on my website and changed the email address from going directly to me to being forwarded to my newly created Google Gmail email account. This email service is free from Google but you have to be invited to join. (Call or email me and I will invite you.) Google has outstanding SPAM protection and acts like a filter, stopping all the SPAM I was getting from that account. It was very easy to set up and Gmail does a great job of sorting the good email from the bad.

The only downside to this trick is that I had to set up a new company email address that I can use from my computer. I will not publish this email on my website.

The SPAM has stopped! I will miss receiving the hundreds of emails a week about drugs, lonely women and enhanced body parts…not!

Check out the intenet video I made of our band, the World Famous Misplaced Priorities. (Click on the center of the screen below) It took me ten miuntes to create…the hardest part was finding the right MP3 song.

Kathy Hernandez, the ace web master of The Reynolds Group just introduced me to ANIMOTO, a great website that is fun and useful too. Anyone can make their own online presentation for free. Longer prenstration cost money. All you do is upload digital pictures and MP3 music and for 30 seconds you too can be an online star. Granted, it is not quite the 15 minutes of fame that we all want but, it is a start. Let me know if you find a practical application of this service on your website. 

THANKS!

If you have made a monthly graph of your sales over the last few years, hopefully, the chart has more peaks than valleys. Do you remember looking at the upward climbing line and happily thinking it would go on forever?  There was no end in sight! You might have loosened the company’s purse strings, made a few new hires, tried a new marketing idea or done some needed equipment maintenance. Sadly, all good things must pass and the northward climbing line suddenly reversed direction and worry replaced optimism

As your heart sank watching that line take a “nose-dive” over the next few months you wondered if the fall in sales will ever stop!  You see a light at the end of the tunnel and wonder if it could be a freight train coming…There is nowhere to run so you cut staff, stop all marketing, postpone all maintenance and hope it misses.  The next month comes and finally there is a spurt in sales and you wipe your brow in relief. Ah…the rollercoaster ride of running a business!

When charting your sales it is important to remember that sales growth, or decline, never lasts forever. At some point the graph line will change. The trick is not to over-react in the moment to shifts in economy or your market. When sales change for better or worse, it’s time to make a list of the “outside” threats and opportunities that may be affecting your business. Then, identify at the “inside” strengths and weaknesses of your organization that are helping or hindering your growth. Decide on a couple of things you can do now to impact your situation and for the next 90 days focus on them. Having a plan always will settle the organization and make you feel better.  Don’t let fear freeze you, reflect, plan and take action!

(Note: If you happen to be living in the world of declining sales now, remember what dad use to say: “It is tough to kill a business - usually sheer business momentum will save you!” Start by looking at one good month as a trend and before you know it…you have two good months in a row and it is!)

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