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Archive for the ‘Customer & Client Service’ Category

Are you Violating the Privacy of One of Your Most Important Assets?: People

By Alice Seba On September 29, 2009

This is something I’ve thought about many times in the past and after a recent occurrence, it’s fresh in my mind again.

In short: Make sure you protect the privacy of your human assets – your subscribers, customers and clients, and affiliates.

The fact that someone is your subscriber, customer, client, or affiliate, doesn’t mean you then have the right to broadcast that fact.

(Side note: I’m not speaking legally. This is not legal advice. I’m just suggesting that as online business owners we respect the desire for other people’s privacy.)

Here’s what I’m talking about:

Many people will excitedly gush if someone of note signs up for their newsletter, but that’s private information and it shouldn’t be shared. Neither should you be blogging about it or posting on a forum when they buy a product or join your affiliate program.

If you want to share this information, ask permission first. You may see a high profile person purchased your product and think that could be good PR… so ask if you can share the fact with the customer.

First of all, that customer may not want those details shared. And second of all, PR attempt may backfire if she doesn’t like your product, it wasn’t what she expected or is somehow unhappy with her purchasing experience.

All these problems can be avoided with simple communication.

Here’s Another “Real Life” Example:

I recently sent out a very small promotion during a product launch. It was just a casual mention of a couple pre-launch goodies to a customer list.

Well, this affiliate manager (who means very well, I know! And I’ve talked to him about it) was running a contest on this launch. I did not expressly enter this contest, but found myself listed on the contest update page with a thanks for my efforts. This page also listed individuals who had earned prizes and other “honorable mentions”.

Now I admit, part of my annoyance for being listed is an ego thing. I wasn’t working toward a prize as I wasn’t committed to the launch, so my being listed as being in the contest makes it appear as though I can’t deliver the sales. It’s bad for my rep.

Well, guess what? We all have egos (so do your customers, affiliates and subscribers) and we all have reasons we expect privacy. It doesn’t matter what they are, those reasons should be respected. If people want to publish my involvement in something, they should ask me. If I had entered a contest and was told winners and participant names would be published, that would be one thing. This is not the case and unfortunately, this is how a lot of people approach the JV portion of their launches.

I realize it’s done to motivate and reward, but it should be handled a little more sensitively.

Look at How You Handle Sensitive Information

Are you publishing names of people whose privacy you promised to protect?

Are you tweeting to your clients that you’re working on something for them? I have coaching clients that are my friends on Twitter and I would never dream of saying anything (no matter how generic) about that relationship, unless they publicized it first.

Use your judgment of course. If you’re a VA for a client and your working for them is generally public knowledge, it’s probably no biggie.

But if you’re a ghostwriter for someone, they may not want you sharing that fact with the world.

So some may say, going back to my affiliate contest example, that my involvement in a program isn’t really a secret. The fact that I promote a product will be seen by my mailing list and anywhere else I promote the product. Sure, but the nature of our relationship should be my decision to reveal to others. Plus, in the case of this affiliate contest… I did not enter such contest, but the affiliate manager implied that I had and publicized it.

Now, do I suggest affiliates should have to specifically enter contests? Not necessarily, but be sure that at some point you receive permission to publish names.

Of course everything comes down to judgment and I think, for many of us, we need to exercise more of it. And whenever we run into a situation we aren’t sure of, just ask.

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Give Your Clients 3 Good Reasons to Hire You (Plus FREE Webinar)

By Alice Seba On September 22, 2009

If I asked you right now to give me three good reasons why your ideal clients should hire you and not the next writer/designer/virtual assistant/service provider – what would you say?

Would you have an answer?

If it’ll take you more than 3 minutes to answer, then chances are you haven’t thought of your Unique Selling Proposition or USP.

USP is a marketing and advertising concept. It is simply that which sets you or your product apart from your competitors.

And if you’re a freelancer, your services are your product, and they need to have a USP.

Without a USP, you’ll just be one of the thousands of service providers out there, many of whom are willing to work for pennies.

If you want to wipe out your competition and make your rates a non-issue, then you need a USP.

Your USP can be:

• your story (it’s always unique)
• your service
• your work ethic
• your offer

When putting together a USP, keep in mind what your ideal clients *really* want. It won’t benefit you much to be the only VA who offers translation in Swahili if none of your prospective clients ever need that service.

Once you have your USP, use it far and wide. Distill your USP into one punchy sentence and:

• Make it the sub-title of your professional website or blog.
• Put it on your business card.
• Add it in your Email and forum signatures.
• If you need inspiration, look at ads for consumer products very carefully. Try to figure out what each product’s USP is. Take note of which ones grab your attention and stay in your memory.

Now, go and do it for your freelancing business.

Need more help crafting your freelancing USP? Join Lexi Rodrigo & Sharon McMillan for a no-cost, no-pitch webinar on Thursday, September 24, 2009, 9 PM (EST). Lexi & Sharon will be talking about specific steps you can take to have a USP you’ll be proud of.

Click here to sign up for The Savvy Freelancer’s webinar.

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Membership Sites Are EASY…No, They’re Too Much Work…Hang On…Which is It?

By Alice Seba On July 7, 2009

It seems for a long, the guru of the month, would shout out from the rooftops (while peddling their high-ticket product on well…you guessed it…membership sites) how easy it was to build a membership site. I mean, who doesn’t LOVE recurring, “auto-pilot” income, right?

But then reality hit and there’s been some backlash for some time now. I see people saying it’s not that easy to get new members. They say it’s not easy to retain members. And gosh darn it, it takes a LOT of work to keep delivering the goods to members.

So who’s right? The guru of the month…or the people out in the field, getting their hands really messy with this membership site stuff?

I’d say they’re BOTH right, depending on how you go about it.

Some background:

• Membership sites and recurring products are responsible for approximately 85% of my income.
• I’ve successfully (in partnership with others in most cases) launched 8 membership sites…and although I’ve moved on from one project, all are still in existence and thriving.

Now, this is not to brag. My accomplishments aren’t terribly unusual for someone who is serious about getting serious with memberships. I’m just mentioning it to show that doing well with memberships is more than just a possibility.

So let’s get to it…

Success Strategies for Membership Sites

If you’ve been trying to get a membership up and running…or if you’ve been thinking of getting started with one, here’s a few tips that will make things much easier for you.

1. Make sure what you’re selling is in demand. I guess it’s kind of obvious, but many people pick a topic and think they can just set up a membership and everything will fall into place. Make sure your market wants what you want to share. Look for other similar and successful products (a good indicator of demand), listen to your customers and readers – then deliver based on that.

2. Make it difficult for members to cut ties with your membership (KEEP READING TO UNDERSTAND WHAT I MEAN). Now, I don’t mean to not answer the phone, ignore emails and create cancellation buttons that don’t work. Of course not! I mean, offer something that they won’t want to unsubscribe from.

Ideas:

• Offer them access to an online software program (think file storage – ex. web hosting, photos, etc. or calculators, databases, etc.) that is discontinued when they cancel their membership.
• Give them incremental content and access to certain areas of the membership. Don’t give it to them all at once…and make sure that what you give them becomes greater in value over time.
• When you raise your prices, grandfather the membership dues of all your current members. As long as your members maintain an active subscription, they keep the low price. If they leave and come back again – they have to pay more.
• Offer products that are consumed (i.e. your members will always need more). This could be physical consumable products or something digital like the PLR content that we sell.

3. Focus on MARKETING your membership, rather than working on it. Many people get bogged down in putting together content and spending endless hours making the membership great. Problem is, all that effort means you’re taken away from what truly makes your membership site as success and that’s – MEMBERS. If you don’t take time to get new members on an ongoing basis, your AWESOME membership site will be pretty lonely.

Ideas:

• From the very beginning, you should have an outsourcing plan. Even if you initially want to get your membership content together, make sure your pricing strategy considers a budget where you can get help with your membership site. If you’re going to do EVERYTHING, you’ll burn yourself out and likely won’t be happy with the results of your efforts.
• If you don’t want to hire, consider partnering with someone. One person can be responsible for maintaining the membership (creating and updating content) and the other can be responsible for acquiring new members (managing ad campaigns, creating promotions, running the affiliate program).

Overall, membership sites are not a complete “set-it-and-forget-it” opportunity. You do need to ensure you’re set up to deliver ongoing content – and you do need a plan for continually bring in new members as old members will drop off. But if you set it up right, it’s well worth the effort.

BONUS TIP: Always be careful in promising more than you can give. We all want to create a great resource for our members, but many people start by piling on the perks so high they can’t keep up, especially if the membership isn’t as immediately successful as they’d hope. Start small…price accordingly and keep loading on the extras to attract new members and keep existing ones from wanting to leave.

(Note to Sweetie Saturday Report Club Members: There is a report in the back-issues called “Recurring Revenue Recipe for Success” that you might want to pick up for more strategies for recurring income.)

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Holding Your Freebies Hostage?

By Alice Seba On June 19, 2009

You know, here’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while  and have also conducted a few experiments over the past half year or so.  I was recently reminded about my curiosity and thought I’d bring it up here when I read this thread -> Force Opt-In Confirmation Before Giving Them Free Content? The respondents had some very interesting viewpoints and things to think about.

If you’re not quite sure what I’m talking about when saying “holding freebies hostage”, let me give you a fictional example (& how I imagine the average person sees the experience):

Jane visits a website that promises her a report that will show her how to improve her memory by 98%. All she has to do is enter her name and email address and instantly (that’s what the sales page says) she’ll receive her report.

Jane is very excited and thinks this website owner may finally have the answers she has been looking for poor memory. So she enters her name, email address and clicks the submit button.

Uh-oh.

Jane is taken to a new page and at the top it tells her that she will need to check her email, click on a link and confirm her request. And once all that is complete, she’ll get her report.

This doesn’t seem very instant to Jane. There are more hoops to jump through and Jane is a little perturbed because she’s in a hurry. Plus, she is requesting this report from a computer at work, so she doesn’t have access to her peronal pop3 email that she used.

But add to that, a little further down on the page…there is a full-blown sales pitch for a product that she can purchase to further improve her memory. She is told this is the ONLY time she’ll ever see this offer and she’d better act now…but Jane is a little annoyed because she hasn’t received her free report yet. How can she possibly know if this is a product worth buying, when she hasn’t even received the promised “sample”? Add to that, she’s not totally sure she trusts this guy because he hasn’t done what he promised yet and is already giving her a pitch.

Now, This IS Fictional

I realize what I’ve said is purely fictional. Not everyone reacts like that and in many cases, you may find better results by holding goodies hostage.

I also tend to agree with Ron Killian who wrote in that thread:

“Honestly I think it comes down to what you want more, or your end goal. If you want a list, you need them to confirm before they get their freebie. If you want the info to get out there to push your site/product, you might be better off giving them the freebie whether they confirm or not.”

This is exactly what we found in our experiments. We were ultimately trying to build a CUSTOMER list. Sure, it’s nice to have opt-ins too, but we didn’t want to make it hard for people to see our amazing value and take us up on our super offer. And let’s face it a small list of customers is generally more valuable than a larger list of opt-ins.

Add to that, we had affiliates promoting these offers and we wanted them to see INSTANT results. We wanted to have them promote the page and BAM! see the sales notifications coming through.

And interestingly enough, in the cases where we did this, the confirmed opt-in rate was quite high. Now, I can only speculate why, but I’m guessing that we gave them confidence that we deliver on our promises, gave them QUALITY stuff and they were willing to confirm that they wanted more.

I think numbers are important (i.e. total sales, how much your list grows, etc.), but it’s also important to take a step back and walk through your process to see how your potential customer experiences it. From beginning to end, we want to people to be pleased with their experience, so they’ll keep on buying stuff, don’t we?

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10 Important Reasons
Why The Mom Market Rocks!

By Sweetie Staff On June 2, 2009

Did you know that companies are spending billions of dollars every year marketing their products to Moms? If you’re in the Mom market yourself, you know you’re in the right place. If not, then why aren’t you?

Services like Mom PLR eBooks make it easy for you to tap into this market, too. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of room, as you’ll see in our Top 10 reasons why the Mom market rocks:

1. Moms make up a huge market. There are over 80 million Moms in the United States, with 1.4 million new Moms giving birth for the first time every year (US Census).

2. Moms send a lot of money. Moms spend $1.3 trillion every year (Marketing to Moms by Maria T. Bailey, 2002). Have I mentioned the Mom market is huge?

3. Moms make a lot of buying decisions for their homes and families. Moms account for about 50% of spending on consumer electronics, food, health and beauty aids, home furnishings, and clothing (MRI, 2004). If you’re still looking for products to promote to the Mommy market, let this guide you.

4. Moms are web savvy. About 70% of Moms surveyed say they use the Internet to research before buying products (Marketing to Moms, 2002).

5. Moms like to shop online. The majority of Moms say they buy products online (Marketing to Moms, 2002). I told you, you’re in the right place. Internet marketing is the way to go!

6. Moms read their Email. Moms check their Email messages all day long (Lucid Marketing & BSM Media). Whoever said Email marketing was dead, was wrong.

7. Moms take Email messages to heart. 71% of Moms say their buying decisions are influenced by Email messages (Lucid Marketing & BSM Media). Not only do Moms read your Emails, they act on them, too.

8. Moms make things go viral. 80% of Moms say they forward useful Emails to their friends (Lucid Marketing & BSM Media 2004). So make your Emails useful!

9. Moms buy, not only for their spouses/partners and children, but for their parents as well. Up to 40% of Moms reportedly are involved in purchases for their aging parents (Marketing to Moms Coalition, 2007). This is a wonderful insight – let’s remember that Moms are somebody’s children, too.

10. Moms rely on their communities or tribes. 64% of Moms say the recommendations of others influence purchases they make for their home (Marketing to Moms, 2002). Moms are the chief financial officers of their homes (and many have their own businesses as well). They buy a lot of stuff, both online and offline. They rely on other people to make up their minds about what to buy, and they appreciate getting really useful information that makes their lives easier.

What’s the take-away lesson for marketers here? You better be marketing to Moms and you better be doing it properly. Moms are craving useful information – are you providing it?

Moms PLR eBooks can help you give Moms the content that they’re looking for online. You’ll get high-quality content written just for Moms, to use in your websites, infoproducts, Emails and more.

Use coupon code “momsrule” (without quotation marks) to get $10 off your first month of membership.

Give Moms content and products they love and they’ll spread the word for you. Moms ROCK!

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Have you ever considered…

By Alice Seba On May 16, 2009

We just returned back from Alaska yesterday afternoon (it was an AWESOME trip…I’ll post some pics soon – UPDATE pics are here), but I wanted to make sure I took time out from the MOUNTAIN of laundry to update you on the Sweetie Saturday Report Club.

May’s report and Essential Biz Notes have been loaded to your membership and they’re all about attracting the right type of client/customer/visitor to your website. If you’ve ever felt frustrated that your target market just won’t buy, have you ever considered that it might be your fault (sorry)?

Well, the good news is, in many cases, you can correct this and that’s what the Report Club is all about this month…attracting the RIGHT people.

If you’re already a member, you can log in and grab your goodies at:

-> Member log-in

If you’re not a member yet, it’s the perfect time to join us. Your first month is only $1 to get started. And this month’s coupon code is:

perfecttarget

Learn more and enter coupon code “perfecttarget” when you fill out the sign up page. Go here for all the details:

Click here to visit the Sweetie Saturday Report Club membership page.

In addition to the two new resources, get 24/7 access the club members-only forum…we’re here to help! If you haven’t joined us yet, come on by and remember, the coupon code is:

perfecttarget

Hope to see you there!

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Update: Solution Backfire…Reworked The Plan

By Alice Seba On May 8, 2009

For those following along with my challenge to merge certain elements of my business, I’ve done a 180…and have changed the plan. I wanted to post an update because I know a number of people were following along, asking questions about  Nanacast and were thinking of following suit.

After moving full-steam ahead and having Diana and Lynette doing a considerable amount of work in our move, I pulled the plug. As things were moving along, I started to get an inkling that this wasn’t the right decision for us and finally Lynette sent me an email update that made me say STOP…we’re not doing this.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with Nanacast - quite the contrary. It’s a great program and the service from Josh and  his staff is AWESOME. I just feel I was already to entrenched in my online business to move to a system like this. I needed something that fit our needs better and allowed me flexibility if we should need to change in the future.

Here’s some excerpts from something I shared with one of my clients, in regard to the decision:

The main thing that kept me from fully jumping into Nanacast was that I had to host my member pages with them. Over time, that is just TOOOO much content to have in the hands of someone else if I want to move at a later date. I have used Quicksales (1SC private label) for a long-time and while it is a third-party cart…all products and content have been hosted on my server. And of course, Amember – which I use for my memberships - is completely server-based.

I also felt set up process in Nanacast was cumbersome. I feel it is designed more for people who worked in multiple niches…because you had to put in the design elements for your page each time you entered a product or membership. Or perhaps I simply missed some global settings, but I don’t think so. In addition, each product/membership had multiple pages of set up and you couldn’t get to the next page without completing everything on the proceeding one which isn’t always practical when you’re just trying to set things up quickly.

There were a few other quirks that were specific to my needs (like using phpbb – we could use it, but members would have to log in twice), but nothing too major there. It was the two things above that made me change my mind.

If it helps to understand what I’m doing, here’s kind of a summary of what we’re working toward now:

- All my memberships have always been in Amember and they will stay there.

- My one-time products and 4-week coaching programs are being moved into Amember only (they were in Quicksales before). This will help me manage my customer lists better and allow my customers to easily see all products available.

- I am still using the Quicksales cart so people can by back issues of my reports. I didn’t want a huge long list of reports in the Amember area, so I just made a sort of “back issue” store in the Sweetie Saturday Report Club members area. 

- I am going to continue use the autoresponder feature of the Amember products to deliver scheduled emails to customers. 

- I am going to keep my other lists in Quicksales

- We have set something up where Amember actually communicates with Quicksales that puts all my customers into a single list in Quicksales. It’s not segmented by product, but at least it will allow me to separate my customers from prospects in Quicksales.

The only drawback I see at this point, is that sometimes I may email people from two systems (which is what happens now anyway). So if they subscribe from one, they may be annoyed when they get another email. There is no way to remove them from both databases…but now that I say out loud, I have asked Lynette if there is a way to set something up.

- The affiliate program, will be fuly integrated into iDevAffiliate. I will plug in Quicksales, Amember and I’m actually integrating my Internet Based Family affiliate program there…so it will be very handy.

BY THE WAY - Quicksales (1SC) does have a plug-in for Amember, but if you use PayPal or any third-party service, it’s unlikely that you can do any recurring products. 1SC doesn’t support those systems for recurring payments. Also, the plug in wrecks the ease of customer re-orders. Right now, all a member has to do is log into their account in Amember and add products. If you use the plug in, they have to log in and then fill out the complete 1SC order form…way too cumbersome.

Anyway, that’s it in a nutshell. I feel good about this decision and there will be no more backing-outies.

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Surprise – Sweetie on Film…How About You? (Favor)

By Alice Seba On April 21, 2009

Over the years, we’ve collected a ton of testimonials…and they’re AWESOME (and of course, very much appreciated). Most of them are in written format, but we’re ready to finally move to the 21st Century and share our awesome subscribers, clients and customers on VIDEO. Hoping you can help out.

I did realize that if I ask you to make a video, it wouldn’t quite be fair…since you rarely see my mug in a moving picture. So here you go…check this out.

PSST! Definitely watch this as you’re going to learn a SECRET I’ve been keeping, plus you’ll find out how creating a quick video will benefit you.

SUBMIT YOURS: To get more details on what to include in your video and how to send it, click here.

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