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Tips For Good Follow-Up

You’ve heard that the fortune is in the follow-up. But, sometimes follow up gets a little… abandoned.

If you’re super busy and you’ve got 52 other things to do – you might not be thinking about following up with leads the way you should be. Well, we are here to help give you some advice that might help you out with your follow-ups. Here is our advice.

Auto Pilot

While we personally do not use a lot of “Auto Pilot” systems – it does work for other businesses and can be quite helpful. Such as an email autoresponder or even online sales funnels. For example – if you have an email list but you don’t feel like you can write emails every day – you can write several all at once or hire someone to write them for you – and schedule them to be sent out at a certain time and date.

The email autoresponder that I personally recommend is Aweber but you can also use Get Response or Mail Chimp.  whichever one works best for you. So, you can load all these emails into your autoresponder – then you won’t have to think about writing or sending them out. Of course, at some point – emails will need to be written. But, not as often.

Another thing that is useful is setting up automatic calls. No, not the telemarketing kind. There are services that let you buy a recorded message that you send out to your prospects – it goes straight to their voicemail rather than letting them pick up and talk to a robot. We do not recommend telemarketing!

Make a Plan

One of our best pieces of advice is – make a list of questions you could ask each client or “lead” here, let me give you an example – when we are working with a potential client – before we ever get on the phone with them or meet them we already know what questions we need to ask right off and what information we are going to need. Obviously, we tailor this to whoever it is we are talking to. This helps us when we are meeting to save time and get the info that will help everyone.

So, if your clientele is pretty much the same niche – you can write out a list of questions (like a reporter) and that way – you won’t have to rattle your brain every time to think of what you need to ask. This will also make sure you get the info you need to better serve your clients and customers.

 

 

This doesn’t seem like much right now – but trust me. It will help!

Calendars are Life

I know, it sounds outdated. But, if you insist you can use the one on your phone – if you have a smartphone. Make a list of people you need to follow-up with and on what days. But, keep this separate from your regular meetings and clients. Maybe write them under a different task or in a different color ink. This way you know who and when. If you have a team – this will help them also. Whoever is dealing with the follow-ups even if it is not you – leads needs to be organized well.

Set alerts and reminders also. Set them for the night or morning before so it’ll give you a heads up. If you’re busy it can be easy to lose track and forget to look at your calendar. And as soon as you finish the task – remove it to avoid confusion. Also, remember to block out a set amount of time for this lead. That way you get time to get to know their needs and also they have time to ask questions etc.

 

Well, that is all for today. Stay tuned for more helpful tips, articles, and posts like this one. If you have a topic suggestion or question – feel free to let us know! Also, remember you can follow us on Facebook andTwitter @KCMarketingCo Speak soon! 

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How Much You Should Be Paying For a Website.

There is a lot of debate when it comes to the pricing of websites. We know! And being a business that designs websites – we have some experience with what people will expect to pay. Often people assume that you can chuck $400 at a designer and get a quality website. Let’s be honest here – that is not going to happen. If you give someone $400 for a website – they will most likely not even consider taking on the job. So, let’s break it down and think about this for a second. Here are some questions you need to ask yourself.

1: Do you want your website to be fully functional and actually serve you?

2: Is the designer credible?

3: What kind of bells and whistles are you expecting on your site?

Keep these questions in mind as we move forward.

Having a well functioning, beautiful, quality website has a huge impact on your ROI (Return On Investment) among other things. Who doesn’t want a good ROI? We all know (or should know) that websites are pretty important. So, let’s think about food for a second. Let’s say you wanted to go out for dinner and you were given two choices. You have a gas station that sells sushi on the right and then you have a high-quality restaurant on the left. If you choose the gas station and go in expecting super quality and a sleek presentation – be ready for disappointment. And a few acid reducers.

Or if I only spend $3 on a steak I can bet it won’t be as good as the one I paid $20 for. Websites, cars, and clothes, aren’t much different in that aspect. If you’re looking for an expert designer, good quality, content, and a good SEO score, you will have to pay more than $600. Beware of anyone who promises you the moon and stars for super low prices.

Does $15,000 sound like a lot? It actually isn’t. We understand that if it’s not in your bank – it’s just not. But, the overall price is not that high for something of such good quality. Let’s talk about how much money will get you where. Remember these are just ball-park numbers. Prices will vary slightly depending on where you go and what it is you need.

$500

This seems like a lot to many people. But, in terms of a website – you’re not going to get super quality for this. You might get something that looks like a 5-year-old put it together if that’s what you’re going for. If you really want a website and you really want it to work well for your business – this is not the amount you want to be spending. Just, run away…

$1000 – $2,500

Okay, this is better… But, it won’t get you things like Content, Internet Marketing, and your ROI won’t be much at all. So, the website might look better than a $500 dollar one – but it still isn’t the BEST you could do. A lot of designers won’t even take $1000.

$2,500 and Up 

This might seem like a lot of money to pay for a website. But, if you’re running a real business and you want quality, good features, a good ROI, among other professional bells and whistles – this is around the price range you can expect. Obviously, some will charge less and some will charge more. It depends on the designer.

Other thoughts

As with the other numbers used in this article – they can all vary from designer to designer. These are meant to guide you in the right direction. You want to make sure you aren’t getting ripped off – but you also want to make sure you are getting good quality. Remember the restaurant example we gave you? Think about that. If you order gas station sushi you have a greater chance of getting food poisoning than if you get it from a real restaurant. If you are thinking about paying for a website – don’t go with the cheapest option available. You will end up with a gas station sushi product. But, if you pay for a reputable, high-quality website – then you will get real restaurant quality.

As always – we hope that this helps you and if there is any way we can help you please feel free to drop us a line. We are always around to help in any way we can. We hope you have a great week ahead and we will speak soon.

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Tips For Hosting Live Events.

When you think of live events – what comes to mind? Most people think a live event needs to be some huge deal that costs thousands of dollars and more entertainment than needed. Calm down – it does not need to be the equivalent of a Metalica concert. You don’t always need to rent space either depending on if you have a storefront or not and the size and location of it. We are going to give you some tips to make your first live events go smoother and hopefully decrease stress.

Location

This subject could be talked about for days. This will be the first step. If you have a storefront big enough for a gathering – GREAT you can just skim this section. But, if you don’t have a storefront of maybe you just don’t want to host your event there – keep reading. So, let me give you an example that might help you out in this situation. Some friends of mine who worked at a local college and they wanted to throw a party for Christmas but they didn’t have the space to do it  – so they needed to rent a place for a night. So, they called around and found a park that would let them host the “party” there. In some areas, there are places that are only for events. You can even use your local community center. Of course landing a location will depend on the type of event you are hosting.

If you are hosting a business event – then you most likely should not rent out someone’s home basement. If you’re hosting an event about knitting – don’t host it at a water park. You get the idea…

Advertisement

This is one of the absolute most important parts there is with any business – but especially for live events. If you don’t advertise you won’t get anyone to your event. There are lots of ways you can advertise these events. But you never want to choose just one method alone. So, here are some suggestions to help you.

Start advertising way ahead of time. Never wait until the week of the event. Go for two to three weeks ahead of time. This gives everyone plenty of time to clear their schedule and to really have it in their minds. Often, when you wait until last second to start telling people – you won’t get nearly as many guests as you would like. But, how often are you walking down the street – see a flyer for an event for the next day and decide to go? Not likely.

There are lots of different methods and routes you can take. Depending on how much time you have and your preferred style. If you really want to ramp things up you can always hire a marketing firm to handle it all for you. But, here are our suggestions on some methods to use.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Non-traditional methods like signs and flyers

Of course, using social media will only work if you actually have an updated and functioning platform set up. And if you actually make sure your clients/customers know you exist on social media. It won’t do any good if you’ve never used it before.

Anyway, you should post at least twice a day almost every day. So, if you’re advertising an event and trying to get a better turn out – consistency is very important. If you don’t have time to manage your social media – get someone else to handle it for you. All the mentioned social media platforms require consistency.

For more offline advertising methods like word of mouth and hanging flyers – there is only so much you can do of that. If you do choose to use this method in conjunction with the others mentioned – make sure you have a good design made for you. And make sure you are hanging your flyers/posters where they will be seen – not just where they fit.

Social media posting

Off the subject of how much to post – moving on to what to post. You’re going to want to create a graphic of some kind. It needs to grab attention and make your business look good as usual – but it also needs to have information about the event. I’m sure you have seen lots of posters like this before. This is almost the same but online and not just on flyers. If you have a designer just talk to them about the kind of event you will be hosting and give him the information on the event and they should be able to come up with something fitting – if you don’t have a designer and plan on doing this yourself – we recommend using photoshop or some form of it. This is especially important for Instagram and Facebook.

Remember to make sure your audience is targeted. You can runs ads or just post on your timeline – but either way, you want – the posts need to be targeted. You need to be specific. One mistake a lot of people make is they are very vague in the description. If you just say “Hey, we are hosting an event next Friday. Come” that will not be enough… At all.

Conclusion

When planning an event – remember that location and advertising are key. Your first event might be a little stressful and a little crazy. But, remember to just take it one step at a time and the more you do it – the easier it will be. If one event doesn’t go as planned – just try something else next time.

If you need a hand with setting up the advertising campaign for your event or any other help we can give – drop us a line!

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