MBA2113 Guest Teacher – Dave Charest – How to Attract and Retain a Strong and Loyal Customer Base

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Foreign. Welcome to the Hundred Dollar MBA show Business lessons that can change your business every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an inhibited software company I started with my co founder and back in 2014 and today's episode is a guest teacher episode. On our guest teacher episodes we bring on an expert to teach their area of expertise. Today we have Dave Shirest and he's going to be teaching you how to attract and retain a strong and loyal customer base. This is basically what every business needs to get new customers, to nurture them, to retain them, to keep them customers, keep them buying, keep, keep them loyal and bring in more. And Dave's gonna outline a step by step plan for you. Why do we wanna bring on Dave Shirt to teach this lesson? Well Dave Shiras is the Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, a huge email marketing software. He's spoken to hundreds of business owners just like you. They have a ton of data of what works and what doesn't. When it comes to attracting customers, retaining them, building a reputation online, they and Dave is here today to share all of that. What works, what doesn't with you. If you have a steady flow of customers in your business. That's it. You've made it. That's the holy grail because you can keep growing and running your business for as long as you want. So hang on to listen to how to implement, how to get this done in your business today. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

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As I mentioned, today's guest teacher, Dave Shiras is the Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact. A friend of the show, Constant Contact is also an integration partner of ours at Webinar Ninja, my software company. These guys have been there, done that. They know online business. They know how to get new leads, they know how to retain them and nurture them and build your reputation online. This is why I'm so excited to have Dave on podcast to show you step by step how to build your system for your business. Right now he's going to dive deep on really discovering how do people find you online? How do you set yourself up for success so that when people come, they convert? How do you encourage new and repeat business and a whole lot more. I'm going to pass it on to Dave right now, but I'll be back to wrap up today's episode. Give my takeaways. But for now, take it away Dave.

Hello. Hello everyone. This is Dave Shirst, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact. Thanks so much for joining joining me today. I'm grateful for the opportunity to teach you how to attract and retain a strong and loyal customer base. So as Omar would say, let's get down to business. Now, I've been fortunate enough to talk with small business owners throughout my career and time and time again. When asked where the majority of their business comes from, the answer is word of mouth. Now the reason for this is simple. Business is built on relationships. If people know, like and trust you and you provide them with a great experience, they're going to talk about you. The great thing now, of course, is that thanks to digital tools, it's even easier for people to spread the word and it's easier for you to connect directly with the people that matter most to your business. Now, when it comes to digital marketing, it can often feel overwhelming, but at the core, it's important to remember that it's all about people. And so a good rule of thumb is if you wouldn't do it face to face with someone, don't do it online. Other than that, there are a few fundamentals you need to know about the tools and how to use them effectively so that you can start attracting and retaining a strong and loyal customer base. So I'm going to give you some tips across three areas so you can get started on the right foot. One, I'll talk about how people find you online. Two, I'll talk about how to set yourself up for success. And three, we'll talk about how to encourage new and repeat business. Now, let's start with how people find you online. Now, as I mentioned earlier, word of mouth happens online and it happens whenever someone reviews, shares, mentions, recommends, or connects with the business in some way. Now, today, your business has an opportunity to be part of more of those conversations, which increases the chances of people recommending or seeking you out when they need what you offer. Now, let's think about this for a moment and consider your own experience here. I mean, I know when I see something that is of interest to me or if I'm looking for something specific, I turn to my network, I ask for a recommendation, and then I'm also going to investigate more by doing a search. Now, what I'm trying to find out is if a particular option is the right thing for me. Now, a recommendation from someone I trust is going to hold more weight, but I'm still trying to get confirmation that the business is again, right for me. So that means I'm either looking for a specific business by name or I'm looking for something that the business does. So what do I find when I go looking? Well, hopefully I find a website for the business. I may also find a Google business profile, possibly paid ads if the business is doing them, and other organic or free results such as social media profiles and reviews. Now, as I click on any of these results, I'm forming opinions about the business as I'm confirming that I actually want to do business with them, I'm asking myself, do they offer what I need? Do they provide answers to the questions I have? And do they seem like a business that I want to patronize based on what I'm seeing? So remember, when it comes to People finding you online, it really means making it easy for people to spread the word about you. It means showing up when people go looking. And then it's really about providing accurate answers to the questions prospects may have. Okay, so how do you set yourself up for success? Well, now that we know how potential customers are looking for businesses, let's make sure we have the right tools in place to attract and retain a loyal customer base. Now I'm going to go over what you should have as part of your marketing toolbox to start and give you a few tips for each. First, the tools 1 we want to have a mobile friendly website. 2 an email marketing tool 3 a primary social media channel 4 SMS or text marketing 5 up to date business listings and 6 content first up, a mobile friendly website. Your website is likely the first place people turn to find out more about your business. So think of it as your online hub. It's where you'll eventually want people to visit. Now since many people do this on devices with varying screen sizes, it's important that it's mobile responsive, which means it adapts based on the device that's being used to view it. Now here's a simple way to think about your website. You want to answer the questions prospects may have before doing business with you and you have to do it quickly because you don't have a lot of time before someone moves on to something else. And so for your homepage, for example, answer these four questions. Number one, what is your product or service? Now you want to be clear and specific here. Number two, well who is it for? Visitors are asking is this for me? So call out your ideal customer. 3. So what? Let them know why they should care, why they should choose you and what makes your product or service unique. And number four, what should they do next? Now this is your main call to action. Make the next step they should take obvious. Now not everyone makes a purchase on their first visit to a website, so you want to have a way to influence them coming back. And that's where email marketing comes in. Why email? Well, simply because it's still ranked as one of the most effective marketing channels. It works so well because people opt in to receiving messages from you and you can start simple and get more advanced as you go along to get even better results. Oh, and that list of email addresses is an asset that you own and you can connect with people on your terms without worrying about algorithms limiting your reach like on social media. Now my tip here would be to use a combination of promotional and non promotional emails to drive sales and build relationships. Now the reality is not everyone is ready to buy all of the time. So a mix of sales driven and informational emails works nicely here. Now I did mention social media. And social media is great because it allows you to engage with your existing customers while exposing you to new potential customers. Now I know social media can often feel overwhelming and the trick here is to choose one or two channels where your customers are hanging out and focus on getting really good at engaging on those channels. That way you're focused and not spinning your wheels because you're trying to do too much. Now think about social media as serving three purposes, awareness, engagement and customer support. Now another reminder here though I mentioned algorithms limiting your reach earlier. Now to add to that, if a site goes down, which happens or it decides to make another sweeping change, it could have a negative impact on your business of which you have no control. Now this is why owned channels like email and SMS or text messaging are so important. So let's talk about SMS marketing. Adding text gives you the option of not only connecting with people in a channel that many prefer, but but it also gives you immediacy in that when people receive a text, they look at it right away. Now for this reason, texts are great for time sensitive messages that offer something exclusive. Now beyond that, think about how you can use this channel in conjunction with social and email in support of your campaigns. So for example, you can start a conversation about a particular topic on social to stimulate engagement. Then you can discuss that topic in more detail in an email and then you could call attention to something pressing related to the campaign in a text. Now when you use this cross channel approach, it's likely to have a greater impact on your overall results. Now another way people may find your business are through listings and review sites. Now here it's important that you claim the listings, which means that you prove you're the owner of the business. So then you're able to make updates and to reviews. Now, people will be looking not only at your reviews, but also to see how you respond to them. Now remember, prospects are looking to decide whether or not they want to do business with you. And so you'll always want to be professional when responding to positive and negative reviews. And at the very least, you're going to want to claim your Facebook page, your Google business profile and a Yelp page. And of course there may be others that are specific to your industry, so you're going to want to claim those too. Now the last item on our list of tools is content. Now content plays a big role in your success online because really, it's what people search for, consume and share online. And when you create it and publish it to your website on a regular basis, it can have an impact on how often you show up in local search results. Now this is particularly true if you're focused on answering the particular questions your prospects and customers are asking. And this is why having a blog attached to your website is important. It's an easy way to add new content. Now here's a tip. When it comes to creating content, start with whatever format you feel most comfortable with, whether it's audio, video or text. Because then you can always repurpose and repackage the content for different formats and channels. Now, when you implement these tools, how will you know it's working? Well, you're going to want to stay focused on things that go beyond the vanity metrics such as likes, followers and shares. Now these are all good leading indicators, but ultimately what matters most are things that are truly meaningful to your business. So you're going to want to pay attention to things like traffic to your website, new signups to email and texts, people contacting you, and of course, sales. Now to review here, use your website, email marketing, social media, SMS listings and content to engage and be useful to your current and potential customers. Now let me walk you through how it all comes together so you can drive new and repeat business. Now this is what we at Constant Contact call the engagement marketing cycle. Now it starts with people who have found their way to your store, your website. Now remember that this can happen through word of mouth referrals, an online search, a listing site or through social engagement. Now once they're there, you provide them with a great experience. Once you've made them happy, you want to entice them to stay connected you through email and or text. Now typically people sign up for these things to get discounts, exclusive content and show support. Now once connected, you want to engage in a regular basis to strengthen those relationships and drive repeat business. And when you engage on social media, those interactions create social visibility which can bring new people to your door. So by focusing on the core elements of experience, entice and engage. A small business can create the relationships and interactions that keep customers coming back and get them to share the word of mouth and social visibility to help bring new customers through the door. Now remember here, when it comes to attracting and retaining a strong and loyal customer customer base, remember to do the ensure that your business can be found online, have a way to stay in touch with new and existing customers create a plan to engage and encourage interaction regularly and then, of course, measure your success. Now, if you do these things, you'll be on the right track to bring new sales through the door. All right, this was Dave Shirest, and if you want to continue learning about making the most of online marketing in a practical way, you can visit constantcontact.com to learn more about the tools we offer and to get more free educational resources. Thanks again for joining me today. Now back to Omar.

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What a powerful and practical lesson by Dave Shiraz Today Listen. You're going to want to listen back to today's episode. You want to take some notes. You want to make sure that you implement these steps steps. And you want to do it today.

Why?

Because every day that goes by is a day that you're not going to be earning new customers and new repeat sales and building your brand online and making sure people know you're a credible business. This is one of the best investments you can do with your time in your business because you're setting up a system that works. It's tried and true. If you want to learn more about this or want to check out Constant Contact as a tool to implement this, go to constantcontact.com that wraps up today's lesson. Thanks so much for listening to the 100 RMBA show. If you love what you hear, hit subscribe. So you don't miss a beat. So you get our next episode automatically. It also gives you access to over 2,000 lessons in our archives. So on whatever podcast app you like to listen to or use, just go ahead and subscribe. Follow the $100 MBA Show. You want to take it to the next level? You want to help us out? Go ahead and share the podcast with your friends over on Social Just say, hey, Listen to the 100 MBA Show. I love it. Check them out100mba.net all the information is there. They can subscribe right on the website. Before I go. I want to leave you with this. One of the things I learned in my career as an entrepreneur is the best businesses have the best systems. You got to install systems in your business that get the results you want. Businesses that have real value, that can be sold for multiples have these systems in place. And the reason why they have so much value is because they earn money. They get customers. So dig your well before you're thirsty. Do it now so that you have a plethora of new customers coming your way that you could serve. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode where we take a deep dive and discuss the question why you are not growing. If your business is stuck, if you're stagnating, if you're plateauing, we're going to discuss what's causing you to be stuck, how to get unstuck, and how to keep that growth coming in. Tune in tomorrow. Make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss it. Until then, take care. Of foreign.

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