Grow From Here

A recent UK study showed that nearly twice as many consumers would rather buy from a franchise than a non-franchised business (‘Franchise Awareness & Preferences survey,’ 2006.)

Queried consumers both understood the business model of franchising and preferred using them over non-franchised outlets.   

The problem was that they were often unclear as to which was which. With an estimated 22% increase in customer attainment, the evidence for franchises to increase their visibility became clear.

Contrary to the common misperception of a franchise being a ‘big bad chain’, and media buzz promoting shopping small and local as the noble way to support local economy, these new findings on popular opinion offer a much more positive perspective.  The British Franchise Association (BFA) has acted on this information and developed a brand, ‘Proud to Franchise’ (PTF) which quickly and easily allows consumers to better identify franchises.  BFA member companies (all stringently screened) join at no charge, and are promoted through logo displays and various online as well as print media channels.

How can this data improve your business?

Focus on the advantages that consumers perceive; review your marketing materials and see where they can be improved.

The study shows that consumers want to shop at franchises because they perceive these benefits:

1. Familiar products and services with quality controlled consistency,  high standards of  service levels
2. Support of local economy with the backing of a secure and stable national brand
3. Increased value-for-money due to low purchasing costs
4. Knowledgeable and invested (local!) owners display pride, expertise and commitment
5. A sense of being a valued customer

Remember: 22% more customers are available to you.

Today’s increasingly sophisticated consumers say they see franchises as the best of both worlds:  the dedicated local with the friendly touch; and the broader national network which ensures consistency, support and lower costs.  For business owners, franchises offer a strong supply chain in tough economic times.  Finally, franchise opportunities are offering a safe foothold for people looking to start a business.  All in all, you have many great reasons to be proud to franchise and to find new ways to increase your visibility! 

Have you tried something similar to the BFA’s Proud to Franchise campaign?  If not, is there a simple way you could use these findings to increase sales for your franchises (and therefore interest from prospective franchisees)?

Best Practices, Franchise, Tips

Developmental psychologist and author, Robert Kegan once stated that, “Behind every complaint lies a commitment.”

The theory behind this is that people do not complain about something unless they care about it.  If they didn’t care, they wouldn’t bother to comment.

Sometimes, I am very hard on my credit union.  I love what they stand for, and want them to live up to it.  But every time they fall short of their high standards I am all the more disappointed.   So I complain.  But unless things get too bad, I am fiercely loyal to them as long as I believe that they are doing their best to live up to their brand promise.  Companies that I don’t think care, I don’t bother to contact with complaints - I just leave and go elsewhere, silently.

Complaints often spring from a person’s frustration.  Attempts to voice their frustrations often come out as complaints.   As the person receiving the complaint, it can be seen as a negative (oh no, what a pain) or as a positive (this person cares about my franchise and believes it can be better).  The perspective you bring to the complaint will make a huge difference in what you do with it.

Although you are on the receiving end of the belligerence, you are also the one in control.   It is up to you to turn things around, and it will definitely benefit both parties.

How can you turn a complaint around?  Change the dynamic by changing the way you listen.

If you can create an atmosphere of safety and allow full expression, then several things happen.

• The relationship stays strong
• The speaker no longer feels victimized, but is now empowered
• The complainer is no longer part of the problem, they are part of the solution
• You become known as a good listener
• More importantly… You have accessed new information
• The complaint is turned inside out, becoming useful data
• This constructive feedback can improve systems and operations

The potentially disagreeable situation can be turned around, by the way that you chose to see and respond to it.

You have shifted the complainer from being a problem to being a part of the solution.

Open ears and an open mind are very welcome to an agitated speaker; it leaves them feeling heard as well as reinforcing the feeling that you are committed to your brand promise.  This creation of a safe space will work wonders to diffuse the frustration of the beleaguered grouch.

Who in your franchise complains a lot?

Why do they bother? 

Are they trying to make things better? 

Are they committed but caught up in feelings of frustration? 

Even when a complaint appears as a self-centered attempt to increase profits, bear in mind that you can turn the situation around, and use the feedback to benefit you both.  And yes, I know that not every complaint indicates commitment, but I have found been impressed by how some of our customers have managed to add huge value to their franchises by changing their perspective on how they receive complaints.

Remember, if they didn’t care, they wouldn’t complain.

Best Practices, Business Growth, Communication, Tips

We’re doing lot of work right now with systems that automate accountability systems for franchises.    I always like to find interesting quotes on topics that we’re working on, and yesterday I came across the best description of accountability - it’s from Michael Armstrong, former CEO of AT&T.

“The ancient Romans had a tradition: whenever one of their engineers constructed an arch, as the capstone was hoisted into place, the engineer assumed accountability for his work in the most profound way possible: he stood under the arch.”

 I love it.  Accountability is such a popular phrase, but how often does one’s life actually depend on being accountable?  And what better definition is there?

Fun, Tips

One of my delights these days is HARO – Help a Reporter Out.

It was set up by Peter Shankman, and if you sign up, you get three emails a day full of queries from reporters who are looking for sources for stories.  It takes a minute to scan through & see if any of the requests for sources relate to your business or your field of expertise.

I also use it to find PR opportunities that may relate to my clients’ businesses.  Some days, there’s nothing in there at all that reminds me of any of our customers – other days I’ll send off 3 or 4 emails to different people from one HARO email.  One of our customers followed up on a PR opportunity I sent him, got invited to speak on a radio show, and even before the radio show, had landed a new client through the press release about the radio show!

So if you are looking for PR opportunities in a particular field, or you have clients who might be, and you can spend 5 minutes a day skimming through three emails, it’s a great opportunity – and it’s free.

Share your HARO success stories with us if you find it’s working for you!

Time Savers, Tips

Top Ten Tips to increase online community interactions

Have you set up an online community that isn’t getting the traffic you are looking for? Online communities can be set up very quickly based on a vision that seems compelling.

‘Build it and they will come’ is one of the most misleading phrases out there when it comes to creating an online community that takes on a life of its own and accomplishes the goals that caused it to be created.

Like any marketing tool, online communities can be hugely effective if you have value to offer that your potential community members also value, and if you are able to spread the word. But getting to the critical mass tipping point is not always simple. Many sites about online communities are full of suggestions about which tool or software package to use. Don’t get distracted. You can have the best software package in the world, but if you don’t get interaction happening, your online community will not grow.

People are swamped by online communities they can join. They may already belong to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Ning communities or other special groups. There are thousands of specialized communities they can pick from and join.

Open Box has developed a number of online communities, and works with customers to design, build and then draw traffic to their sites. Here are our top ten tips to help increase the interactions in your online community.

1.  Offer something that is of high value TO YOUR MEMBERS. It is very easy to offer something that you consider to be of high value – the most important thing is to know what your potential members see as being of high value – these two can be very different and you must know what they see as valuable. If you don’t know the answer to this, don’t read any further until you do – none of the following tips will help.
2.  Have a tightly targeted community – don’t try to be all things to all people – do one thing extremely well and have a simple message that tells people exactly what your community has to offer them
3.  Seed the community – get a core group of people who are both interesting and experts in the field who will start interesting conversations and get interesting posts going to kick-start the conversation
4.  Try arm twisting and bribery – the key goal is to get to critical mass – where you have enough members and conversation that when new people come they see the community as alive and interacting – then they will want to join and interact themselves. Find people you know who will comment on the early posts and/or start discussions – ideally people who also know each other will get the ball rolling
5.  Reward interactions – make sure that people who do post are getting replies and that a positive feedback loop is being established
6.  Quality not quantity – it will be of greater benefit to you to have three conversations going that are passionate and involved than 50 that each have one or two posts. Map out a strategy for those first conversations (be they in forums, articles, feedback forums or others) then implement
7.  Know what people are doing – use analytics tools to see where people are going, what they are doing, and especially where they are leaving the site. Where they are going means you have done something right – where they are leaving is a place that you may want to make some changes.
8.  Try rapid small changes and measure the effect – this tip ties in with #7 – make numerous small changes and always track the effects. If you add a new or bigger button, do you get more response? How about if you change the wording? One site we worked with was free, but simply adding ‘it’s all free’ above the ‘register’ button increased the number of sign-ups significantly.
9.  Find passionate people – people who are passionate about the subject of your community will make the best contributors. Find them through twitter, through their blogs, through other online conversations. Get in conversation with them and find out what might draw them to your community. These are the people who will post, reply, and tell others about this great new site they have found.
10.  Ask for help – people love to help, so posting questions asking for help / advice / input is a great way to get the conversation going, especially once you’ve found your passionate people in tip #9.

Non tip: Being controversial is often advised as a way to get people talking about you. If you try it and it works, let us know in the comments, and maybe it will be in the next top 10 list!

Best Practices, Communication, Tips

Online Coupons Bringing In New Customers

CBC had an interesting interview recently related to the recent increases in online coupon usage.  They’re in huge demand these days and websites like Red Hot Deals are doing a booming business.  Online coupons can be a great way to attract customers and bring new people in to your location.   People are looking for ways to save money these days, and many are open to trying new suppliers/companies if they can get lower prices.  Coupons can be a great way to entice new customers, and the cost can be extremely low (close to non-existant) if you use online coupons.

Using the internet to distribute online coupons for some retailers has led to a reduction in catalouge production/distribution, saving both the consumer & the supplier money, not to mention lowering environmental impact by reducing paper waste.

Statistics on Online Coupon Usage:

Many retail franchises have traditionally used coupons to bring in new clients, and according to a site called Prospectiv, “Tough times are seeing more people using coupons – 72% of consumers are using more coupons than they did six months ago and three quarters say the state of the economy is the reason for doing so”.  This is strong evidence that using online coupons to promote your product(s) or service(s) is a sound marketing strategy.  When times change and new trends on consumer spending practices surface, they often become the norm for the long term rather just surfacing as a “fad”.

Prospectiv also quotes the following survey stats from polling 1,386 consumers, (August 2008): 

• 80% said they would be very likely or likely to increase their use of coupons if they could be tailored to their interests and delivered online.

• 87% of shoppers said they would be more likely to shop at a retailer that offered coupons.

• And the good news for newspapers: 47% found print and online coupons equally convenient, while just 9% reported online coupons were most convenient.

An article on how to market your coupons can be found at TamingTheBeast.net, where ideas such as; raising standard prices; offering a coupon sign up registry on your site; submitting your coupons to online coupon sites & setting up an affiliate program are discussed.

Creating Your Own Online & Print Coupons:

Other options are to create your own coupon(s) using websites such as MerchantCircle.com (for a fee, their service is to assist you with online advertising), or CouponsReady.com  (design your own coupon for your business website, or print distribution).  Each charges a fee for their service, but make the process of online coupon creation a relatively simple process.  Even better, you can set coupons up for free using Google Coupons.

Get set up with Coupons in 10 minutes or Less With Google:

If you’re not already set up on Google Maps, do that first (5 minutes).  Then go to www.google.com/local/add to create an online coupon for your company.

Google Coupons

Best Practices, Business Growth, Communication, Franchise, Technology, Tips advertising, clients, consumers, creating, Design, distribute, economy, franchises, Google Coupons, Google Maps, ideas, marketing, new, offiliate, online coupons, polling, prices, print, product, promote, retailers, service, statistics, strategy, submitting, trends, usage

There are lots of online technical tools out there. I’m not a fan of tools that just let me play with technology, but the ones that actually forward business purposes are the gems. One good one (and free) is the Press Release Grader from HubSpot. Improve the quality of Press Releases that you send out & make them more effective by getting direct useful feedback before you release them.

“HubSpot’s Press Release Grader evaluates your press release and provides a marketing effectiveness score. This score is based upon basic factors from public relations experts including the language and content of the release, plus advanced factors from Internet marketing experts such as links and search engine optimization characteristics.” (from the Press release grader website).

To test the press release grader, I submitted a sample press release. The results were returned instantaneously, with a follow up email of the full report. The first screen returns a clear and concise analysis along with suggestions on how to improve the press release.

Main page

Some of the suggestions made on how to improve our press release were:

· The anchor text of the link did not seem to match any words in the page title of the target page. For Search Engine Optimization (SEO), use keywords in the anchor text that describe the page being linked to

· Press releases should contain 3 or more links to get the maximum SEO benefit.

· A standard practice when authoring press releases is to include an About section at the bottom of the release. Following this convention makes it easier for those interested in information about the organization mentioned in the release to find it.

· For a press release to have maximum value from a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) perspective, it should contain a hyperlink to the main website of the company.

· It is a standard practice of press releases to include special text at the end of the body of the release. This is usually ### (three pound signs) at the end of the text. This can be either ### or -30-. This special text is used by press release submission software to recognize where the official release ends.

· It is usually a good idea to get a link to your website earlier in the release than I had done in my sample

· (Love this one): This content contains 0 words that are considered gobbledygook (they are overused and lack specific meaning).

The report also offered two additional resources to assist with writing a press release: Which of these rookie mistakes are you making? and a link to join the Pro Marketers Group on LinkedIn

Even though my “grade” came back at a respectable 78/100, it is good to know which tweaks would make it even more effective. After all, the whole point of sending out press releases is to have them be noticed & generating PR for your business.  Five more minutes to know I’m not wasting my time sending it out is definitely a winner.

Past Technical Tips

Keyword Analysis Tool – Write Content that Works for You

Google Keywords Selector – Help the Right Customers Find You

Google Maps – Let Customers Find You

Google Alerts – Keep an eye on the Competition

Technology, Time Savers, Tips

Why Analyze Keywords

One of the first steps in Search Engine Optimization is determining what keywords people will be searching for to find your product.  Two weeks ago I wrote a post about using the Google Keyword Selector to get the right people finding your website – people who are actually looking for your products and services.   They’re the best ones to have coming to your site because they’re the most likely to actually buy from you.

The first step in helping these customers find you is determining what the right keywords are – what are your best customers actually searching for?  The second step is writing content that:

1. Provides value
2. Uses those keywords
3. Is unique

Writing Content that Provides Value

I am going to assume that you can write content that provides value.  If writing is not your strong point, I know a number of companies that have succesfully found either professional writers or students who are passionate about language or other types of communicators who can write up the information.  One company I know hired a great communicator/online networker and has established a place as an industry leader in their field in less than a year – huge ROI.  But that’s a topic for a different post…

Check Keyword Usage

Once you have the content that provides value, the next step is to see how it stacks up in terms of keyword usage & attracting the right traffic via search engines.  Always remember that you need to write the content for users, not search engines (and in fact, too high density can get penalized or be very hard to read).  But real language keyword density that makes sense and provides value is the lodestone you are aiming for.

A great tool for determine your keyword density (=how much you use your selected keywords) is E3 KWD Check - it’s a nifty little tool that you install on your computer.  You can then load into it web pages or local documents & it will tell you the keywords used in those web pages/documents, along with how many times each is found & what the keyword density and prominence of each keyword is.  Once you have a draft of the content, run it through E3 KWD Check & see whether the keywords you selected in step one are actually reflected in your content so they bring the right customers to your site.

Is Content Unique?

The unique factor is mainly a list of Do Not’s

• Do Not use content that has been posted elsewhere on the internet
• Do Not  post the same article/blog posting to multiple different blogs
• Do Not  copy someone else’s content
• Do Not post the same content multiple times throughout your site (you won’t actually get penalized for this, but the duplicate content will be ignored).

Or, to put it another way, do post original valuable content that was developed only for/by you.  The closer your site gets to being considered an ‘expert’ by Google, the more valuable the search engines perceive your content to be.

Helping The Right People Find You

As I said in my post on Tuesday, don’t make people think! 

Make it easy for them to find you when they are looking for what you offer.

Make it easy for them to buy from you.

Make it easy for them to keep coming back.

Then keep adding value and repeat.

Communication, Search Engine Optimization, Technology, Time Savers, Tips

Don’t Make Me Think

One of the best books on website design and usability (making websites easy and pleasant for people to use) is called Don’t Make Me Think.  It’s a classic, and everyone I know who is serious about web design is familiar with it.  I even recommend it to customers who are interested – it’s an easy, practical book with common sense explanations and lots of examples.

The best websites will make it obvious to people browsing the web where to click, how to navigate and what they offer.  These are the sites that are a pleasure to visit and that allow you to go deeper and deeper, but without overwhelming you at the beginning.  They don’t make the user stop and think about what the site is trying to do, how to accomplish the user’s purpose, or what the choices are.  They don’t make the user stop and read, but make good use of headings, bullets, clear buttons and visual distinctions.

Don’t Make Your Customers Think

Good design and making it easy doesn’t just apply to your website.

Does your sales pitch make it obvious to people what they’re getting and, even more important, why they care?  Or do they have to wade through your sales pitch/marketing materials trying to figure out what the product/service does for them?  The easier you make it for people to understand why it matters to them, the more likely you are to close the sale.

Does your customer support make it easy for people to figure out how to solve their problems?

Do your your production processes make it easy for customers to know what is happening when, and why?

SQL or MySQL or XML?

At Open Box, we do a lot of work with companies that are looking to increase efficiences, build their online presence, improve their reporting knowledge or build productivity systems.  Our customers for the most part don’t want to know the technical details.  Who cares if the database is SQL or MySql or Access or XML?  Does it accomplish the business purpose it is meant to achieve?  And does it do so in a cost-effective and easy-to-use way?  If so, then pick whichever database is best for our purposes!

Do you talk with customers in internal jargon for your industry?  Do they have to figure out what you mean, or are you making it easy for them?

The Pleasure Aspect

We all lots to think about & lots to figure out day to day.  The more you can make doing business with you seamless & enjoyable & easy for your customers, the happier they will be.  I suggest looking at all aspects of your business – maybe bring in someone who knows nothing about it & ask them to go through the buying process, and watch every place that they get stuck, aren’t sure what to do next, hesitate.  ‘Don’t Make Me Think’ is not just great advice for web design – it’s great advice for business & process development.

Best Practices, Business Growth, Communication, Tips

Why Keywords?

The purpose of Search Engine Optimization is to have the right people find your website – people who are looking for your services or product.  Keywords are the words that people are likely to search on.  If you are have a Chinese restaurant in Vancouver, then maybe they will search on ‘Chinese Food Vancouver’ or ‘Chinese Restaurant Vancouver’.  If you sell franchises especially to new immigrants, then maybe they are searching on ‘Canadian Business Opportunities’ or ‘Franchise for Immigrants to Canada’.

Step One – Know Your Keywords

The first step in getting your site optimized is learning what your best prospects are actually searching on (as opposed to what you might think they are searching on).  How do you find this out?

1. Ask your current customers how they found you
2. Make a list of all the words that you think people might search on to find you
3. Put yourself in the headspace of a prospective customer and brainstorm what you would look for
4. Test & verify with Google’s Keywords Selector

Google Keyword Selector

You can find Google’s keyword selector at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.  Once you have your list of words that you think are likely the ones people are searching on, go here and type in the words that you think are the most likely.  The tool will show you how many people search on those keywords and suggest alternatives. 

Business Growth, Communication, Technology, Time Savers, Tips