Tag Archives: Twitter

What Can You Learn From Clinton Cards Demise?

Posted on 05/09/2012 by admin
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I was really sad to hear this morning that Clinton Cards have gone into administration, which more than likely means they will disappear from our High Streets. As with lots of hot topics I had a look at Twitter to see what people were saying about it and I was sad but not surprised….  One tweet said it was no wonder they were going bust because they charged £3.50 for a card that elsewhere was being sold for 70p and another said Why would anyone buy a card from Clintons that cost more than the present?  There was a definite trend!

Clinton Cards seem to have made the big mistake of sticking to what they were doing even though their market had completely changed. Yes, we used to spend money on cards but that was because it was all we knew but then online cards came along and the supermarkets started everything but the kitchen sink and that included cards WAY cheaper than the card shops.

Clinton Cards unfortunately have failed to seek the advice of the people that could have told them the ket to their prosperity and that is…..their customers, and now its too late.

If you want to know what you are doing wrong or right then the people you should be regularly asking and I repeat REGULARLY, not every few years or when your profits start to dip (this could be leaving it too late) but ask them every time they buy from you, ask them every time you bring out a new range of products or decide to discontinue something – how many times have you heard loads of people say….. “Why did they stop doing X, I loved it” In fact there have been many occasions of products being discontinued, customers going mad and the product  being re-introduced ! What a waste of time and money that could have been avoided if they had just asked the customers opinion in the first place!

So – ask your customers their opinion regularly, give them an incentive for completing the questionnaire or survey etc and USE the information!

You can’t exist without your customers, give their opinion the respect it deserves !

 

Claire x0x

 

If you need help with your business, attracting new customers and making more profit then get in contact today, email me.. claire@bombshellacademy.com

Are You Spending Too Much Time Concentrating On The Numbers?

Posted on 04/20/2012 by admin
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One of my pet hates (Yes, another pet hate!) is when new businesses go all out to gain Twitter followers and Facebook ‘Likes’ – they are obsessed and seem to think this is the way to get business as quickly as possible, I see it all the time and so this Blog is to tell all those people that are guilty of this to STOP!!!!!

Facebook Likes and are all very well and good but unfortunately they do NOT equal sales. It is definitely a case of quality and not quantity that is important. If you have 1000 likes on your FB page and in actual fact only 2 of those are actually interested in what you are selling and the rest are just liking you because they think that you will like them and buy something off them then you might as well just have 2 likes!

The people you want to Like you are the ones that are going to tell others about you, spread the word and become your free salesforce, the other ones you want are the ones that are interested in you because they actually intend to buy a product like yours and when you build a relationship you can be the one that they buy from.

Unfortunately with Facebook and Twitter we seem to have lost a little direction when it comes to sales. The key to EASY sales is to build relationships. Let people follow you because they are interested in what you do, engage with them and build that relationship, let them like you and by keeping in their mind you can easily change them from an interested person into a buying customer…..  Only yesterday I saw a post on Facebook about a lovely wedding dress that someone was thinking of buying, it was strapless and they needed something to cover the top. I instantly commented that I knew a lovely lady called Kay that specialised (note SPECIALISED) in just such a thing, she is @wraporKay on Twitter and because I follow her, like her tweets, like her products and tweet with her she instantly came to mind and I passed on her details – in all likelihood a sale for her and how easy was that?

Don’t focus on getting follows and Likes from people that you have no intention of engaging with, concentrate on the few, get interested in them and they will do your building and growing for you icon smile Are You Spending Too Much Time Concentrating On The Numbers?

 

Claire xox

 

If you need help building and growing your business get in contact today claire@bombshellacademy.com

Do You Tell Your Customers Who You Are?

Posted on 03/27/2012 by admin
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This blog post was inspired by the lovely Steven Carter Hewson, otherwise known as @carterhewson on Twitter if you want to check him out! How did he inspire me? Well he posted on Twitter that he had written a personal Blog put he was undecided whether to publish it or not – everyone, including me said Yes, go for it!

When we are in business its easy to put on your business head and keep it stuck there day in and day out, but in reality one of the big reasons your clients chose to work with you is not because of the price or anything else, its because of YOU!!!

People want to know who you are, more so now than at any other time people want to know all about the person. Its why reality programmes are so popular now, on X Factor its not the best singer that is voted for its the one with the best story. ITs why Facebook and other Social Media is not only so popular but also such an important and fantastic sales tool!

Your clients want to know WHO you are, they want to know all about you because they are buying from YOU, not from your company or your business but from YOU! Have you ever heard the expression people buy from people? Well its true. People want to buy from the person that they think is most like them, they want someone that has similar ideas and views as them, similar morals, similar sense of humour etc – you don’t have to be an exact copy of them, now that would just be spooky and weird but they think if you are LIKE them then you will do a fantastic job for them because you will instinctively KNOW what they want and how to please them.

So – don’t be afraid to show your customers and potential customers who you are. Reveal a bit about yourself to them – tell them about your dog, your family, your favourite foods etc. Of course on the flipside keep in mind that you ARE showing yourself to customers and potential customers -you don’t want to start revealing that you are into satan worship or anything, unless of course these similar people are your target market (probably not! lol)

Reveal some, but don’t reveal TOO much is the key!

 

Claire x0x

If you need help building your business and attracting more clients the easy way then get in touch for your FREE Breakthrough session….. Email me now claire@bombshellacademy.com

 

How Much is Too Much?

Posted on 08/16/2011 by admin
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I was inspired to write this blog today because a couple of businesses irritated me this morning with their marketing. The first one was on Twitter and they were promoting a package they were offering and they tweeted the same thing about 4 times in less than hour. Now, I’m all for repeating yourself, especially on Twitter because your audience changed from minute to minute and hour to hour but 4 times in an hour is REALLY overkill and will just lose you followers. If you have something to promote then do your homework about your followers, find out who is online when and tweet it several times a day but at different times of day and different day of the week so that you are reaching different people each time, don’t just bombard the same poor people with the same message constantly.

My second encounter with irritating marketing was through email!  I subscribe to lots of different newsletters and sometimes I read them, sometimes they get instantly get deleted. Well one that I hadn’t heard from literally all year suddenly started emailing again and my instant response was, oh, so they are looking for business now, but ok I thought and read the newsletter. Then just 2 days later I got another newsletter from them, equally as salesy and not interesting at all, and then just 1 DAY later I got a third email from them and that when I decided to hit the unsubscribe button!

People don’t mind receiving newsletters, thats why they sign up to them, they think you are going to give them something interesting and of value and if you deliver that part then they are happy to have a bit of sales patter thrown in. But be CONSISTENT! If you send them a newsletter make sure you keep sending them at regular intervals that suit your customers. More than weekly and personally I think you are pushing your luck, but equally if you send them not often enough you will go out of the customers mind and you will be equally as irritating. You could always be super-clever and ask your customer how often they want to receive it, give them the choice!?!

Claire xox

 

Need help marketing your Wedding Business so that you get more clients and more profits? Join the Wedding Wealth Program – 100% of my clients have said that they were glad they did!

Do Competitions Really Help Grow Your Business?

Posted on 06/28/2011 by admin
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On Twitter lately I see competition after competition being run and people trying to get new customers in this way but does it really work or is it just another way to throw away your precious hard earned money.

Like everything to do with marketing competitions work great to get new customers as long as you do them right!  There is only reason to do a competition and that’s to get new customers interested in your products and being able to market to them in orderto make them PAYING customers!  Running competitions is a way for people to raise their hands and say they have an interest in what your selling but this will only work if the price is relevant to your business. If the prize is a Wedding Dress then pretty much the only people that are going to enter the competition are people that are actually looking to buy a wedding dress, but if you offer a prize of £10000 you are pretty much going to get the world and his wife entering and your chance of converting any of these people into customers is pretty minimal.

People that enter competitions will not automatically turn into customers just because they’ve entered, and if you are expecting your work to stop there then you are wasting your time running it. Remember, I’ve talked before that it takes an average of 7 contacts with a potential customer before they are likely to buy from you so them contacting you to enter your competition is just the first of these! The next contact can either be thank you for entering or ‘Sorry, you didn’t win’ but you have to keep contacting them after that, after all, by entering they have shown that they are probably in the market for your product or service so to stop contact at this stage will just mean that they will probably end up buying from someone else.

So, once  your competition is finished make sure that you send the entrants a series of emails, preferably in an autoresponder set up on one of the many email companies that exist and get those number of contacts built up quickly and effortlessly.

Next week I’ll be talking about upselling, so that when you thank people for entering your competition you’ll have a way to make a sale there and then!

 

Claire x0x

 

If you would like first hand help with attracting more clients and developing your Wedding business then contact me today about the Wedding Wealth Program, 100% of my clients have said that it helped their business.

Do You Test and Measure Everything?

Posted on 06/14/2011 by admin
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One of the first things I ask new clients or people that are just asking for marketing advice is “Whats working for you currently?” I want to know this because if something is working then my philosophy is ‘If it aint broke don’t fix it’ although I do know some people with marketing strategies that seem to have the philosophy ‘If it aint broke fix it until it is’ but thats a whole ‘nothr blog!

I want to know whats working because sometimes the best marketing strategy is to increase and refine what you’re already doing if something is working for you rather than introduce a whole load of new things that take time and money and maybe wont work at all, but back to the point of the blog.  It simply amazes me when some people have no idea what is working or not working for them, they have a website, they advertise, the use Facebook and Twitter and they have no idea where their customers are coming from. This is madness in the extreme – if you are spending your time on Twitter, maybe several hours a day remember what your time is worth (hopefully a minimum of about £30 per hour) and thats a WHOLE lot of money you are spending on Twitter – are you getting enough returns from that to justify it?

The same goes with advertising (my soapbox topic so I’ll try not to get on it!) Its ok advertising in glossy magazines if you are GENUINELY getting the sales from it that not only cover the cost of the advert but also end up making you a profit, otherwise whats the point? Yes you could say that its brand awareness etc but let face it , you are NOT Coco-Cola or Cadbury’s you haven’t got millions to throw away on brand awareness, all your budget NEEDS to get you a return. Not only that but what use is brand awareness when the wedding industry is so continuously moving? Your brides and potential customers are potential customers for a year, maybe 18months tops, after that they are married and aren’t interested in the wedding industry anymore – weddings customers are around for a short time, chocolate customers are there for life!

So – what is all your hard work marketing REALLY costing you and what is it REALLY getting you? If you don’t measure it then you cannot improve it and if you can’t improve it then you could be just throwing your money away. One of my favourite sayings is from Ben Franklin “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” Yet that is EXACTLY what some people do with their advertising and marketing…..

 

 

Claire xox

 

 

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Can You Work Smarter Not Harder ?

Posted on 03/01/2011 by admin
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When I am coaching a new client we come up with lots of tools and strategies to keep in touch with clients and potential clients and these include things such as newsletters, blogs, Twitter, Facebook etc one of the things they often tell me is “but Claire when am I going to have the time to do all that”

When I go to networking events people look at my name badge and then screw their face up and say ‘where do I know you from?” 
“Twitter maybe?” I ask and they say “Yes, thats it, I follow you. you are ALWAYS tweeting!!!”

Well I’m going to share a secret with you – I dont actually work that hard! I know, its shocking because I constantly keep in touch with people through my newsletters,  blogs and tweets etc but the thing is – I work WISELY!

Whenever I write a blog, I also use it as a couple of newsletters, and I break it down further to be used in tweets and status updates on Facebook. On twitter, I often have it running in the background using Tweetdeck and I monitor certain words or phrases so that I don’t miss anything that might be important and although I engage with people in ‘real time’ I also plan my tweets and status updates in advance so that they go out automatically without me having to constantly think about them. Also, when I’m in ‘blog’ mode if I think of titles that would be good I jot them down and can rattle off several at once because I find once I’ve started writing then its no more effort to write several than just the one.

When I blog I also adapt the blog to be an article and submit that onto a few websites to increase my web presence – its all about re-cycling your knowledge into lots of different formats and making the best use of lots of different formats – Simples!!!


Claire x0x0

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