Motorcoach Marketing Winter 2018

MOTORCOACH

ISSUE 08/ DECEMBER 2018

MARKETING WINTER 2018

Marketing and Sales Information Designed for the Motorcoach Industry

Recruiting Ideas: How to Find Good Hourly Employees

10 Ways to Deal

with Negative

Charitable Marketing Strategies

The 7 Fundamentals

The Ultimate Guide to Small Business

Customer Reviews

Of Sustainable Business Growth

Goal Setting

20 10 20 06

SHOULD YOU LAY OFF WORKERS DURING SLOW PERIODS?/ Laying off employees during slow periods, whether it’s due to seasonal fluctuations or an...

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11 REMARKABLE EMAIL MARKETING TIPS YOU NEED TO IMPLEMENT RIGHT AWAY/ According to KissMetrics, a customer intelligence and web analytics company, “Email has...

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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT/

RECRUITING IDEAS: HOW TO FIND GOOD HOURLY EMPLOYEES/ Hourly employees comprise more than 60 % of the US workforce, yet many employers are unsuccessful....

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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SMALL BUSINESS GOAL SETTING/ Every single small business owner, at any stage of the business lifecycle, needs...

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10 TIPS FOR ORGANIZING YOUR SMALL BUSINESS THIS YEAR/ An organized business is a productive business. You may not consider yourself blessed with natural....

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10 WAYS TO DEAL WITH NEGATIVE CUSTOMER REVIEWS/

INFORMATION AND TRAINING FROM GO MOTORCOACH/

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THE 7 FUNDAMENTALS OF SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS GROWTH/

Consumers often rely on the opinions of others when making purchase decisions. According to Zendesk...

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CHARITABLE MARKETING STRATEGIES: 8 IDEAS FOR SMALL BUSINESSES/ As the holidays approach, charitable organizations are really starting to ramp up their outreach and.....

Sustainable growth is among the biggest challenges any business leader faces, but it isn’t...

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HOW TO WRITE A STRONG SEO TITLE TAG THAT GOOGLE WILL LOVE/ Reading this, you probably know how to create a website. Once you’ve got that skill in the bag, the next...

PRODUCTION Production deliverabilities layout&design: Phone: 360.468.3699

Email: info@deliverabilites.com www.deliverabilities.com

ADVERTISING Motorcoach Marketing Council opportunities: Phone: 360.840.0779

Email: chris@gomotorcoach.org motorcoachmarketing.org

GoMotorcoach

do•it•for•you

NO TIME FOR MARKETING? NO PROBLEM... WE CAN DO IT FOR YOU.

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The Motorcoach Marketing Council/ From the president.

What An Exciting Time

and recognize that indeed we will be stronger together. We know that while how and where the GoMotorcoach products will be used has yet to be finalized, that it is with great confidence that we say, that we know that the UMA shares our passion for helping operators become more effective operators. We also know that through this effort we can continue to help this industry show the traveling public all of the many reasons they should choose to Go Motorcoach!

For the last 5 years each and every year we have been excited to share new and exciting advancements from the motorcoach council. We have seen the development of tools and exciting advancements in the ability of the industry to better market. We have seen benchmarks set in the financial support through our auctions and fundraisers. We have seen record-breaking attendance at our annual after-party, GlowMotorcoach, and we have seen more and more operators choosing to use the We hope that you will continue to look for ways to principles and resources we have provided the put these important principles to work for you and industry. your business because we know that when you do it will help drive your continued success!

It has been an exciting time, but all of that seems to pale in comparison to our most recent announcement, our partnership with the United Motorcoach Association. For some time now we have realized that what this council needed most was more horsepower. We saw that we needed to find an organization that could put the administrative and financial support behind the council that it so desperately needs.

-Jeff Rogers

We are proud of our heritage of being “for the industry, by the industry� and while that provided us some benefit, it also caused us to experience the reality that being everyone, meant that we were also no one. This new direction gives us what we need to help become a more important part of the industry under the leadership and direction of the UMA. The synergy between the UMA and the MMC have been long evident. As a founding member and longtime board contributor the UMA has consistently been there supporting the council and providing us with access to many of their tools and venues to help move the mission forward.

This new relationship and transition is a natural progression of that long-standing successful history.

While we recognize that this transition is going to be a new chapter for the council we also understand that without change, progress rarely happens! We are excited about this change

Jeff Rogers

MMC President.

Owner First Class Tours Houston, TX

STRATEGY

Should You Lay Off Workers Duri

BY HARVEY MEYER

Good, hard-working employees are highly sought commodities.

Once you’ve got them, you want to keep them.

Laying off employees during slow periods, whether it’s due to seasonal fluctuations or an economic downturn, is an easy way for businesses to cut expenses. But are you costing yourself more in morale, productivity, and loyalty by laying off workers?

employees since tim It’s never pleasant, believe that they h but to furlough so curtail expenses – e economic downturn

Companies have been laying off

Some small enterp because they don

But do they, in fact, h

sales or those employing low-skilled, low-wage employees who are easily replaceable.

On the other hand, companies that require a highly trained, skilled and productive work force might reap a competitive advantage offering a no-furlough policy. Same for industries where employees are in high demand.

Small firms that shun layoffs report a bundle of bottom-line benefits: ** High retention and loyalty – Good, hard-working employees are highly sought commodities.

Once you’ve got them, you want to keep them. Productive workers at a no-layoff company have less incentive to leave when industry competitors, even higher paying ones, can’t match year-round employment. These employees’ loyalty is especially enhanced when they witness the no-downsizing policy first-hand, usually during a soured economy, when many other firms don’t hesitate to dispatch their workers.

ing Slow Periods?/

me immemorial. but firms often have no option ome workers to especially during ns.

have a choice?

prises think so, n’t downsize –

under any circumstances. There are no reliable statistics available on the number of small companies that eschew layoffs, but the number is believed to be tiny.

For some firms, offering yearround employment doesn’t make much sense. Chief among them are enterprises sporting roller-coaster

** Enhanced esprit de corps, teamwork and productivity – A small enterprise demonstrates optimism and caring by never laying off. That’s inspiring to employees, especially these days, when it seems many companies treat humans as an expense on par with materials and other costs. That good-will gesture makes employees feel appreciated and respected. It also encourages a we’re-in-this-together mentality and a willingness to work harder, longer and more effectively.

** Less absenteeism – It stands to reason: High-morale employees who feel valued and part of a team are less inclined to miss work, arrive late or leave early. ** Improved recruitment – Say you’re a highly skilled worker and you’re debating between a small firm with a checkered employment history or one that has never downsized. With everything else being equal, which company looks more attractive? With waffling prospective workers, the no-furlough policy can be the difference maker. And chances are they will tell their productive friends and associates. ** Superior customer service – Since employees are motivated to stay longer with no-layoff companies, customers benefit; that’s because longer-term customer-service and front-line workers better understand their clients’ needs. Longtime customers and vendors also value an ongoing relationship with employees. ** Payroll savings – This is somewhat debatable, but some no-layoff operators say many employees will accept slightly lower wages as a tradeoff for employment security. ** Overall savings – Yes, paying employees’ salaries year-round under any and all circumstances can be expensive, especially during economic slumps. But the institutional knowledge that is retained, the increased productivity, the reduced recruitment costs and other factors arguably saves companies considerably more in the long run.

Typically, a no-downsizing policy isn’t the only benefit accorded employees at these firms. A sense of community develops that is also often evident in profit sharing, 401k plans and other employee-centric programs. The no-layoff policy also tends

to go hand in hand with family-friendly atmospheres.

One such firm in Minnesota offers generous retirement, medical and dental plans. Plus, it hosts many informal get-togethers for the rank and file on the company premises. At an Illinois small enterprise that guarantees year-round employment, the owner makes a point of personally congratulating workers on their employment anniversary date and birthday. The several dozen employees are also treated to barbecue and bowling parties.

During a depressed economy, no-furlough firms keep their employees busy performing other activities. At the Minneapolis firm, workers clean the building from top to bottom, repair production machinery, and paint the facilities inside and out. The owner also uses down periods to cross-train employees, which comes in handy when somebody leaves or the company is shortstaffed.

Of course, there are obvious downsides to never furloughing workers. A shortterm cash-flow crunch, for one. What small enterprise wouldn’t be tempted to jettison some workers’ salaries during business downturns?

Some employees may also try to take advantage of a no-layoff firm, even if there is no written policy. At the Minneapolis company above, one employee who was terminated for spotty attendance threatened to sue, claiming the firm guaranteed year-round employment. It’s because of such legal concerns, along with competitive and economic uncertainties, that some experts advise against offering a written no-layoff guarantee.

Before resorting to layoffs, companies could consider several other options to save

money. For instance, they could institute a hiring freeze. Or, restrict overtime.

Some might consider job-sharing, payless holidays or shortened work weeks. Perhaps they could offer employees a choice: Vote for a short-term pay reduction so everybody can stay working, or lay off some of their brethren.

Clearly, furloughing workers is a last-ditch measure for small companies. No one ever wants to do it. But for many firms

that have managed to eschew layoffs, it’s a values statement: Their employees aren’t just another expense that shows up on financial statements; they are an investment for today and the future. 

READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE ONLINE CLICK HERE

INSPIRATION

The Ultimate Guide to Small Business Goal Setting/

BY ALYSSA GREGORY

Every single small business owner, at any stage of the business lifecycle, needs goals to keep moving forward, get them motivated to do more, and maintain the success of their businesses.

Goal setting can follow many different processes, and each one can be successful as long as it defines the long- and shortterm goals and devises a plan for getting there.

Here is a collection of resources that will help you maximize your goal setting process and guide you as you achieve your business goals, from the simplest to the most ambitious goals on your list.

01 Getting Started with Goal Setting There’s no denying the importance of business goals. Goals provide direction, motivation and a clear way to measure your progress. Without goals, you may struggle to find the path from where you are right now to where you want to be. The tips in this article will help you get started with goal setting for your business, focus on the specifics of what you hope to accomplish, and start to put your plan into action.

02 30-Minute Goal Setting Cheat Sheet Goal setting doesn’t have to be a long and complicated process. You need to pick a theme, identify the necessary action items and commit to the process. If you have just 30 minutes, you can follow these four simple steps to create a goal for your small business.

03 SMART Goal Setting 101 Whether you have a 50-employee company or an empire of one, your business success depends on your ability to set and achieve goals. This article will introduce you to the concept of SMART goal setting and help put your business on the fast-track to goal setting and achievement.

04 7 New Year’s Resolutions That Will Change Your Small Business New Year’s resolutions can be a powerful way to kickstart goal setting. A resolution, after all, is a decision to do something different to bring about positive change. This article outlines seven possible resolutions you should set this year.

05 3 Easy Steps for Turning Your New Year’s Resolutions Into Powerful Goals A resolution on its own is meaningless. It’s when you create a plan that focuses on the desired results of your decision that the magic happens. These three easy steps will help you turn your resolutions into goals you can focus on in your business.

06 Four Common Small Business Goals to Inspire You If you’re having difficulty identifying the right business goals for you, this article is the one you should read first. While there are many different business goals you can set, sometimes the most common are also the most relevant. This article looks at four common business goals and provides a number of resources that will inspire you to get started.

07 5 Common Small Business Goal Setting Mistakes Avoiding mistakes can save you a significant amount of time and effort down the road.

So to make your goal setting as efficient as possible, this article lists five common goal setting mistakes you should try to avoid in your small business.

08 How to Reach Your Biggest, Most Pivotal Goals The only way to make goals count is to give them the attention they deserve. Here are some tactics to use this year as you set new goals and commit to seeing them through to fruition.

09 Backward Goal Setting When you are overwhelmed by the idea of setting goals, it can be helpful to start at the end and work backward. This tutorial will

walk you through the process of creating realistic goals that are broken down into single actions you can focus on one at a time.

10 How to Set Business Goals with Just One Word Creating a goal with just one word is a way to eliminate the overwhelming part of the goal-setting process and focus on a specific theme. Here’s how to start.

11 Goal Setting and Tracking Apps Having a system for setting and tracking your goals is an important part of the goalsetting process. Without a system, it would be impossible to identify a goal, create an action plan and track your progress. This list of goal setting and tracking software will help you create, track and achieve your most important business goals.

12 10 Powerful Goal Setting Steps Envisioning your ultimate business goal may not be that difficult, especially if you are a driven and determined business owner. Figuring out how to achieve that ambitious goal, though, can be another story. Returning to the basics of the goalsetting process is one way to get and stay on track with your business goals, and getting motivated and inspired is another.

This article focuses on both.

13 Tips for Successful Goal Setting and Achievement There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to goal setting. The good news is that you can do a few things that will help you create an environment that is conducive to goal setting success. Taking the time to work on the items listed in this article will

help reduce the challenges that come with tackling your biggest goals.

15 6 Alternatives to Traditional Goal Setting

14 How to Get and Stay Motivated

Sick of traditional goal setting? Try one of these six alternatives that can help you create a new focus and intention in your business for the coming year. 

Without the motivation to work hard and overcome challenges, you may find yourself in a slump, and worse, you may lose your passion for achieving your goals. Motivation is vital for any goal setting process; without it, it will be very difficult to reach your goals. Review these tips for getting and staying motivated when you’re striving to accomplish your goals so you can build momentum and push through challenges with ease.

READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE ONLINE CLICK HERE

MARKETING

11 Remarkable Email MarketingTipsYou Need t Implement Right Away/ BY: Matthew Collis

to

According to KissMetrics, a customer intelligence and web analytics company, “Email has nearly three times as many user accounts as Facebook and Twitter combined.”

In fact, it reaches 2.9 billion people.

Email marketing isn’t just important, it should be a key tactic built into every organization’s marketing plan. When it comes to both customer retention and customer acquisition, email can be instrumental. In this article I am going to discuss 11 great tips you should think about and implement right away.

1. Send the right message to the right people at the right time

Understand the goal of your email or campaign and make certain it’s specific and measurable. And whichever goal you decide on, your call-toaction should be in alignment with it.

Not every email is going to be relevant to everyone in your database. Be sure you have properly segmented your database into various groups or categories. Then, design custom email campaigns for each group. Also, experiment with sending email on different days and times and then see which ones work best for you. Optimal send times vary based on your customers and the industry you’re in.

2. Know your goals Understand the goal of your email or campaign and make certain it’s specific and measurable. And whichever goal you decide on, your call-to-action should be in alignment with it.

3. Make sure your email provides information of value Answer the “What’s in it for me?”

(WIIFM) question. What you’re really asking is “What do my contacts have to gain by receiving this email?”

You need to ensure your email is positioned to help you achieve your goal and that the content is of value to

Not every email is going to be relevant to everyone in your database.

Be sure you have properly segmented your database into various groups or categories.

your recipients. The WIIFM should be loud and clear.

4. Include a call-to-action (CTA) Verify that your email has a clear and persuasive CTA. Make it easy for people to take the action you’d like them to take, such as to sign up for a free trial, fill out a form to get a complementary guide or call a specific number.

5. Have a compelling subject line Many people will decide whether or not to open an email simply by looking at the subject line. Because it’s the first thing people see, it’s evidently very important. Be sure to make your subject line compelling and keep it short and sweet (under 50 characters). An effective subject line offers something of value to your recipients and invokes a sense of curiosity, urgency or excitement.

6. Avoid spam-trigger words Avoid words that will likely cause your email to be picked up by spam filters, such as these 100 spam trigger words and phrases to avoid. Also, don’t use exclamation marks and all CAPS in the email subject line, as these have a good chance of getting flagged.

then Christina’s friend Jason sees it and shares it with his connections. You get the point - social share buttons give your email the potential to be seen by thousands of people you normally wouldn’t have direct access to. A good CRM lets you easily add these buttons into your email templates.

7. Include social media share buttons

8. Make sure your email is eyecatching

If you’re not giving your contacts the ability to share your email on their social media sites, you’re missing out on valuable opportunities for potential new business. You may have an enticing offer that one of your leads thinks would be great for many of her friends. So your lead, Christina, shares it with her LinkedIn connections. And

It’s crucial that your email is nicely formatted and eye-catching. This involves using bullet points where necessary, incorporating images (but sparingly) and breaking text into short lines or paragraphs. If the email looks boring, your contacts will likely gloss over it and quickly hit the delete button.

9. Make sure the friendly

Be aware of how you on smartphones an certain it’s optimize Tips for creating email include usin template, having using larger text an as possible, both i email and in the sub

10. Track and analy

Pay attention to me and click-through r of how successful y a robust CRM, you reports that provi

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ur email is displayed nd tablets and make ed for these devices. a mobile-friendly ng a single column one call-to-action, nd being as succinct in the body of the bject line.

yze your results

etrics like open rate rate to get a sense your email was. With can view campaign ide you with key

data. If your email was sent to a group of prospects, view who opened and clicked on your links (or who has done so multiple times). This can indicate that these people are particularly interested in your message and may be hot leads - contacts you’ll want to further engage with. Also consider using Google URL builder to insert trackable links within your email so you can view clicks and conversions with Google Analytics.

11. Optimize your campaigns with A/B split testing With A/B split tests, you send a variation of an email to half of your distribution list and another variation of the email to the other half. Split test the subject line of your email, the day or time of the

week it’s sent out, the email headline and/ or any other aspect of the email to see what performs best. A/B split testing is a great way to improve the performance and success of your campaigns moving forward.

If you’re not taking advantage of email to give your business a boost, you’re missing the boat. Use these tips to create fruitful email marketing campaigns that will help you drive key business results. Good luck! 

READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE ONLINE CLICK HERE

In CaseYou Missed It/ Important Articles Written Exclusively for the Motorcoach Industry.

Data driven marketing

Time. The ultimate killer of marketing.

Big data is a big deal. Marketers around the globe have turned to data as a powerful ally in finding new customers and cross-selling to existing customers. Big data is...

For those of you who may not know, we recently wrapped up the first-ever motorcoach marketing industry survey.

The survey accounted for nearly 3,500 pieces...

READ IT NOW

READ IT NOW

Change

Let’s Raise Our Prices

Let’s face it: change sucks. It’s often scary and inconvenient, and in many cases, it means we have to stretch. Just like the rest of you, I’m familiar with the “change is good”...

Yep, you heard me…on three…go! OK. Prices raised. See you next month! If only it was that easy! I was recently asked to address a group regarding the shortage of...

READ IT NOW

READ IT NOW

The Council’s Mission

The Key Is In The Drip

For any of you that have attended a meeting where I have been asked to speak, you can probably recite in perfect cadence our mission: to help operators sell more charters...

Erosion is a pretty strange way to start a marketing column, but let’s be honest…it’s probably not as strange as potatoes! I was recently driving from the Pacific...

READ IT NOW

READ IT NOW

STRATEGY

Recruiting Ideas: How to Fin Employees/

By MEL KLEIMAN, CSP

nd Good Hourly Hourly employees comprise more than 60 % of the US workforce, yet many employers are unsuccessful in their efforts to find qualified candidates in sufficient numbers and fall short of retaining top employees long enough to realize a return on their investment.

That’s because the total cost of losing an hourly, frontline employee ranges from 30 % to 150 % of that person’s annual earnings. Add to this the fact that non-exempt turnover is approximately three-and-onehalf times greater than exempt and it is clear that hourly employee turnover is by far the greater drain on profitability.

One cause of this problem is that many employers don’t fully grasp the demographics of today’s hourly, frontline workforce. While many employers aim recruiting messages only to younger people, about onethird of these workers are actually 25-44; slightly less than one-third are 45 or older.

Many employers also recruit for full time positions when many hourly workers would prefer 30 or fewer hours per week.

Another large part of the hourly employee recruitment and retention problem can be attributed to the following: Many employers tend to focus on recruiting unemployed candidates,

which is fine, but be sure to attract top candidates who are already working and who may be open to a better job and/or working conditions.

Today’s overwhelming number of applicants for every job, making it that much harder to find the outstanding performers. Learn how to find job candidates via a targeted marketing strategy.

The fact is that most managers and supervisors hire only occasionally. They are not trained in best-practice techniques nor are they experienced “hiring managers” -- they are managers who hire from timeto-time. Be sure to take time with your job interview preparation.

Take a Marketing Approach to Recruiting To recruit the best, employers have to make recruiting a 24/7 activity. If you only recruit when you have openings, you can’t get the best, because the pressure to hire someone immediately causes you to be less selective and often results in a bad hiring decision.

Learn how your business can attract top talent.

Become a “Magnetic Company” To paraphrase Yogi Berra, “If they don’t wanna work for you, nobody’s gonna stop ‘em.” There are companies that never have recruiting problems.

When they need good employees, plenty of candidates are readily available (companies such as Disney, Nordstrom, Southwest Airlines.)

Many smaller companies nationwide have similar reputations. In fact, you can maximize your small business hiring advantage. These companies can use the flexibility inherent to their smaller size to become “Magnetic Companies” that attract quality applicants.

Make It Easy to Find Employees To hire the best, you’ve got to make it easy for the best people to apply. If you accept phone calls, résumés, and applications only during regular business hours, you discourage the very people you should be trying to recruit -- all the good people who are busy working. This means you have to modify or extend your hours for accepting applications and conducting interviews to synch with applicant availability.

Install a 24-hour job hotline and include it in your job postings. It can be as simple as an answering machine or as sophisticated as a fully automated interviewing system.

With a 24/7 system, you’ll see an increase the high-quality applicants by 30-50% or more.

Today’s job applicants are busy. They sit down at the computer and “let their fingers do the walking.” If you’re not using Internet job boards and your company website to advertise your jobs, you’re definitely missing the boat.

If there is a “Careers” or “Join Our Team” tab on your website, take a few minutes to take it for a test drive. Many of these website pages lose jobseekers by making the process too complicated and/or time-consuming while some don’t work at all.

Man the Fort Whether you’re looking for a customer service representative or retail salesperson, most apply for three jobs at once. This means employer responsiveness is a deciding factor in recruiting success. So, when you need new recruits, monitor the system and get back to promising applicants right away. 

READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE ONLINE CLICK HERE

In regards to the Motorcoach Marketing program, we love it. So far, we have made the 1000 postcards, and we did some full page handouts. We just got a stand up banner.

When I get some time, I’ll be making new rack cards for both offices. We made 500 church theme postcards and 500 in the safety theme.

We sent out the church cards through a local mailing company to every church within 50 miles. So far, we have had a great response and 4-5 people booked trips from it. I plan on using the safety ones soon by sending them to our new customers. All of our staff and drivers love the modern design and the finished products. Only one of my staff has watched the videos so far, but we will be working on that next month. So far I’m very happy with the service. It works well and looks great!

Chris Knittel

Owner/General Manager New Mexico Texas Coaches, LLC

We Help Operators Sell More Charters To More People.

Easier. Faster. Far More Effective.

MotorcoachMarketing.org

STRATEGY

10 Tips For Organizing Your Small Business This Year/

By Nellie Akalp

An organized business is a productive business.

You may not consider yourself blessed with natural organizational skills, but now is the perfect time to get your business and work space organized.

Below are 10 tips to help you do that and get on track in the new year.

How to Organize Your Small Business Purge Your Office Even if you don’t mind a little mess and dust, too much clutter can add to daily stress and chaos.

Clutter exists because we think that everything is important. With the new year, toss out whatever is outdated, no longer relevant or a duplicate.

For example: •

Recycle the broken electronics you may have stashed in a closet.

• Delete all those old voice messages.

• Donate anything you don’t need or use.

• Keep the basics and anything you’ve used in the past year; all else can go.

When your workspace is clean and uncluttered, you’ll enjoy spending time at your desk and

won’t waste time searching through junk or moving piles around.

Organize Your Paper Files One study found that the average person wastes over 4 hours per week searching for papers. Go through your filing cabinets and shred anything that’s out of date or no longer relevant to your business.

If you’re worried you might one day need fouryear old notes from a client project, then scan the originals and throw out the paper files to make more room.

Ditch Paper Receipts Considering the IRS accepts electronic copies of receipts, there’s really no reason for you to continue hanging on to all those tiny paper slips from restaurants, taxis, office supply stores, etc.

Find a receipt management scanner or app for your smartphone (such as Neat Receipts) and make sure your solution lets you export data to whatever expense reporting/accounting app you use.

Use the Cloud for Storage and Sharing If you haven’t done so already, start using cloud-

based tools to share and save documents. For example, Google Drive lets you store up to 15GB for free, while giving clients or colleagues access to collaborate. Other tools include Dropbox and Box. By housing files in the cloud, you can help clean up your personal storage, as well as save valuable time spent emailing documents back and forth when collaborating with others.

Tame Your Inbox If your email inbox has become a catchall for every email you’ve received over the past years, it’s time to clean house. It is possible to manage your email inbox so you only see the messages you still need to deal with and everything else is neatly archived for safe keeping. Start with a clean slate by filing away everything you no longer need to respond to.

Next, tame the level of new emails you get each day by unsubscribing to newsletters or other subscriptions you no longer read. Create specific folders where non-essential emails go automatically, so they don’t interrupt your daily flow.

Get the Right Note-Taking Tool One key to staying organized and effective as a small business owner is having the right solution for jotting down any tasks or inspirations when they strike.

Whether you prefer to use pen and paper, voice recording on your smartphone or an app like Evernote, the most important thing is that the solution fits into your lifestyle so you’ll use it consistently.

Tidy Up Your Social Media Profiles It’s not just your email inbox and desktop that fall prey to clutter. Your social media profiles can also become clogged and out of date.

First, take stock of where your business has a social presence and drop any accounts that are no longer in use. There’s no point in having multiple Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn,

Tumblr and Instagram profiles if you’re not actively posting and monitoring each account.

You can also use a tool like JustUnfollow to weed out any followers who are inactive or aren’t following you back.

Meet with a Tax Advisor Don’t wait until it’s time to file your returns to start thinking about taxes. Make an appointment with a CPA or tax advisor early in the year.

If your business is still structured as a sole proprietor, now’s the time to think about protecting your personal assets and gaining other benefits through a formal business structure like an LLC or corporation.

Take Charge of Your Books If you run a small business, you already have some kind of process in place for invoicing, processing payments, recording expenses and tracking projects. But if you haven’t updated your process lately, chances are there’s an app out there to help make these administrative tasks easier and more efficient.

Take a look at your tablet/smartphone app store for a new tool that could help you get organized and take charge of your books in the new year.

For example, there’s FreshBooks, Mint, Kashoo, and InDinero to name a few.

Tie Up Any Legal Loose Ends This is a perfect opportunity to tie up any loose ends you’ve been putting off in prior years. For example, did you file a DBA (Doing Business As) for your business name? Did you get a Tax ID number? Are all your licenses and local permits in order? Did you make any changes to your corporation and LLC and still need to file an Articles of Amendment to record those changes with the state? 

READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE ONLINE CLICK HERE

TOO BUSY RUNNING A

CHARTER BUSINESS TO DO THE MARKETING

YOU NEED TO DO? NO PROBLEM...WE CAN DO IT FOR YOU. GoMotorcoach

SALES TRAINING DRIVER RECRUITMENT

SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT MARKETING MATERIALS

EMAIL TEMPLATES MARKETING SUPPORT

indd 3

1/3/17

MARKETING

10 WAYS TO DEAL WITH NEGATIVE CUSTOMER REVIEWS/

By PAUL CHANEY

Consumers often rely on the opinions of others when making purchase decisions. According to Zendesk, a customer service software platform, 88 percent have been influenced by an online customer service review when deciding what to buy.

That is why getting positive online reviews on sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Angie’s List is vital, particularly as pertains to new customer acquisition.

From a consumer standpoint, negative reviews can adversely impact your business and can drive down your listing on consumer review sites, making it harder to find.

While no one wants to get negative reviews, they sometimes happen. Here are ten ways to deal with them should they occur.

1. Respond Promptly Promptly responding to negative reviews shows the customer that you care and value their opinion. It may also be the catalyst that results in a person who had a bad experience with your business giving you a second chance.

Such was the case with Craig Jooste, owner of a Seattle-based painting company, WOW 1 Day Painting.

Jooste received an unfavorable review on Yelp due to problems that resulted from a Living Social campaign. He responded to the reviewer with an apology and even offered to reimburse the person for the amount paid to Living Social for the voucher.

As a result, the person revised her review saying, “If a Director of a company can demonstrate that type of responsibility, I’m sure they’d always go out [of ] their way to make [it] right with any customers. I’m very happy with the outcome of our resolution and will work with WOW in the future.”

2. Take the Issue Offline Depending on the problem, rather than respond to an adverse review by leaving a public comment, it may be better to reply privately via email or phone. For example, Yelp gives business page owners the opportunity to do so via email. If you resolve the matter to the customer’s satisfaction, leave a brief comment in the public timeline.

3. Be Polite A negative review, particularly one that expresses a strong opinion, such as in the example below, may stimulate emotions that

could lead to a sterner response than necessary.

Take time to collect your thoughts and respond by saying something like, “Thank you for your valuable feedback. I would cherish the opportunity to speak with you about your experience. Please contact me at your earliest convenience.”

If, after talking with the person, you find there is merit to his comments, take proactive steps to remedy the situation. When warranted, provide restitution in the form of a coupon or discount.

4. Request That Defamatory Reviews Be Removed Most consumer rating and reviews sites will not allow you to remove reviews. In the case of one that is defamatory or vilifying, request that the site take it down. Typically, you must claim your business listing before making the request.

5. Monitor your Online Presence In order to respond to reviews, you first need to know what customers are saying and where they are saying it.

Online reputation monitoring tools like Social Mention, Reputology, or Review Trackers can help. (Social Mention is free to use while the others are affordably-priced to fit small business budgets.)

Set up Google Alerts for your business name or use a site like TalkWalker, both of which send email alerts. Social media management tools such as Hootsuite or Sprout Social also have built-in monitoring capabilities.

6. Understand How Rating and Review Sites Work Each consumer rating and review site has a particular way of filtering and ranking reviews.

Yelp uses an algorithm to recommend reviews its thinks will be the most helpful to the Yelp

community based on three factors: quality, reliability, and the reviewer’s activity on the site.

Tripadvisor, a travel site that provides reviews of travel-related content, ranks businesses based on star ratings.

Chris Loomis, the owner of American Photo Safari, a sightseeing tour company in New Orleans, said that getting a four-star rating on TripAdvisor (as opposed to a five-star rating) can result in lower rankings.

“Four-star ratings hurt more than not writing a review at all,” said Loomis. “One four-star review drove my ranking down from fourth to seventh.

In a competitive market like New Orleans, that was a harsh penalty.”

Fortunately for Loomis, most reviews are accompanied by five-star ratings. As a result, his business now ranks fourth out of a list of 455 things to do in the city.

The best way to get positive reviews, said Loomis, is by providing an excellent standard of service. “Don’t just say that you provide good service, actually do it,” he said.

7. Take Negative Reviews Seriously In most cases, people who leave negative reviews aren’t out to defame you. They merely want to express their opinion about the experience. Take such reviews on their merits, as they may reveal an area of your business that could benefit from improvement.

8. Encourage Customer Reviews To offset the impact of a negative review, encourage customers to leave reviews.

However, don’t attempt to influence them by asking that they leave only positive reviews.

Yelp ardently discourages such practices.

Put signs, table toppers, or window stickers

in your store or place of business for review sites that you want to promote. Add a note to invoices or receipts asking customers to leave a review. Place badges linking to review sites on your website. These are subtle ways to encourage reviews that may spur the customer to respond.

9. See the Good in a Bad Review Negative reviews can benefit your business. If every review is positive and abounds with fourand five-star ratings, potential customers could become suspicious, feeling that the reviews are “manufactured” rather than being left by real customers. As paradoxical as it sounds, the fact that negative reviews appear can contribute to building trust, rather than diminishing it.

10. Share Reviews with Your Employees Make sure everyone in your company is aware of reviews you’ve received, both positive and negative. Not only will that help to ensure you prevent similar problems in the future, it builds a customer-centric mindset among employees. 

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STRATEGY

Charitable Marketing Strategies: 8 Ideas for Small Businesses/

By Sarah Matista

As the holidays approach, charitable organizations are really starting to ramp up their outreach and marketing in order to capitalize on the ‘season of giving’ to come.

If you’ve ever considered philanthropy or charitable marketing as a strategy for your business, now may be the perfect time to think of creative ways to get involved.

What are the benefits of charitable marketing for your business? There are several. One being that it builds goodwill for your business and establishes positive associations for your brand. (We posted a full article on branding through philanthropy awhile back that might be helpful.) Charitable marketing is also a great

way to gain exposure for your business by leveraging the audience and trading on the recognition of another brand - the charity itself. Finally, your charitable activities give you something new to talk about on social media, in your own email marketing, in press releases, and elsewhere, in order to drum up traffic to your website and your store.

Not sure where to begin? We’ve put together 8 ideas for charitable marketing strategies to get you started!

1. Sponsor or co-sponsor a charitable event. This is the most standard idea on the list, but it’s a good one. Having a booth or tablecloths or really anything with your brand, in addition to having your name on the sponsors list, is great for brand recognition. This is especially true if your brand is somehow related with the event - sincerely or comically - like a doughnut shop sponsoring a marathon. Read more about successful event sponsorship here.

2. Create a special limited edition product for a cause. Seek out a charity in your community that you think you could make a product for. It would be something that the charity itself could sell, or something that you’d sell on their behalf. Just make sure you clear all the details with the charity first! An example might be a personal care shop making special edition pink soaps to support a breast cancer charity.

3. Donate your product or service to a charity auction. Everyone loves an auction, silent or otherwise. Make your business part of the excitement! Everyone in attendance will get to hear about your product or service being offered from the auctioneer (or in writing if it’s a silent auction) and hearing people bidding on your item will

make those unfamiliar with your business think you must be pretty great.

4. Collect donations at your location for a charity. Sometimes called ‘embedded giving’ this is a very effective collection method because people are already spending money on themselves and feel more inclined to be charitable as a result.

Partner with a local charity (or national organization if you prefer) and ask guests when they check out if they’d like to donate an additional dollar for a cause. The benefit to your business? Not only does it help customers associate your brand with philanthropy, you will also be mentioned in the charity’s press releases - “XYZ Business raised $25,000 for our cause!”

5. Host an event that gives proceeds to a cause. A great example of this is RSVVP, a program in central North Carolina where participating restaurants give 10% of their profits on a designated day to a local food charity. RSVVP has a lot of brand recognition of its own, so the participating restaurants benefit from that, in addition to being listed in all the online and printed materials for the event.

6. Collect physical donations at your brick-and-mortar location. Find out if any of your local charities will be hosting a food or clothing drive this holiday season and might be interested in setting up a drop-off spot at your location. They will publicize the name and address of your business for you, and the people who come in to drop items off will likely stick around and do a little holiday shopping.

7. Donate your space for a charity event.

After you close your doors for the evening, or before you open them for the day, why not let a charity use the space you’re already

paying for bring in some folks for an event?

In-kind donations like these are a great way to get involved, do something good, and bring new people to your place of business at little to no cost to you.

8. Finally, have your employees or best customers represent as a team. Getting your brand out into the community is important, and so is fostering good relationships. Do both by creating a team composed of your employees and/or some loyal customers to run a 5K or participate in some other fundraising event. They’ll have a great time, and they’ll be wearing custom t-shirts advertising your business in the process.

However you partner with a charity this holiday season, it’s important to be aware of local and federal laws regarding charitable giving and tax write-offs. Once you have a plan in place, write down everything and have representatives from the charity sign off on it. 

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INSPIRATION

The 7 Fundamenta Sustainable Busine

Every company needs to pin down “why we do what we do.” That’s the company’s North Star, guiding every aspect from recruitment to customer management to product development and sales.

tals Of ess Growth/

Sustainable growth is among the biggest challenges any business leader faces, but it isn’t a new problem. My grandmother, who lived in a remote village in Bangladesh, was barely 5 feet tall, skinny as a rod, and very soft-spoken. She could barely read or write and never had a formal education, yet she successfully managed a farming and sharecropping business, overseeing a network of farmers,

By FAISAL HOQUE

merchants, and seasonal workers, all while raising nine children and keeping a household in order.

same. Here are seven of them.

To do that, she needed to create long-term value from the work she directed without exhausting the finite resources at her (and her community’s) disposal.

Even though circumstances are very different for modern entrepreneurs, the fundamentals of sustainable growth remain the

Every company needs to pin down “why we do what we do.” That’s the company’s North Star, guiding every aspect from recruitment to customer management to product development and sales.

1. AUTHENTIC PURPOSE

A strong purpose drives growth and profitability. For instance,

an investment in the Stengel 50 (a list of the world’s 50 highestperforming companies) over the past 10 years would have been 400% more profitable than an investment in the S&P 500.

In order to achieve sustainable success, companies must repeatedly reexamine their sense of purpose and make sure the organization serves it well. An authentic and inspiring purpose allows for: •

is to try to be all things to all people.

3.

PARTNERSHIP COLLABORATION

If you want to create a scalable business, you have to understand how crucial it is to build brand equity and emotional connections with customers.

It’s those attachments that link customers to your products and will keep them returning to you. Building a brand is about developing and sustaining those relationships over time.

Doing everything yourself can be tempting in the beginning when funds are few and ambitions high.

While there’s nothing wrong with a hands-on approach, taking on more than you can handle, especially in areas where you lack experience, can be damaging.

In the era of the global freelance economy, it isn’t difficult to find talented expertise, but you have to know where to find it.

A constant, consistent sense of focus A strong emotional engagement both within the company and with its customers and partners Continuous, pragmatic innovation

Here are some basic rules to connect, shape, influence, and lead with your products and brands:

Sales and marketing experts often talk about “unique selling propositions,” or “USP,” which Entrepreneur defines as the “factor or consideration presented by a seller as the reason that one product or service is different from and better than that of the competition.”

Connect with the public. Make your audience feel an emotional attachment to your brand that’s grounded in confidence in your products.

•

•

A company’s authentic purpose gives rise to its USP. When a business has a clear vision, it’s easier to create products and services of value. Revlon founder Charles Revson, for instance, always used to say that he sold hope, not makeup.

2. A POWERFUL BRAND The surest road to product failure

Choose your target audience. The surest road to product failure is to try to be all things to all people.

Inspire your customers. A simple, inspirational message is far more influential than one that tries to highlight too many product features, functions, or ideas.

No marketing plan can rescue a brand identity that isn’t fully formed. Don’t have much marketing budget to speak of?

Create compelling content for publisher and social media sites to start generating awareness among target customer bases, and build up.

AND

There are now dozens of websites and online marketplaces that provide specialized resources from design, development, and sales to finance, legal services, and banking. The best part is that you can try small projects at low investments. The trick is knowing exactly what you want done and putting resources toward accomplishing tangible goals.

4. CUSTOMER RETENTION As Emmet and Mark Murphy write in their book Leading on the Edge of Chaos, acquiring new customers can cost an organization around five times more than retaining current ones. In fact, a 2% increase in customer retention can have the same effect as decreasing a company’s costs by 10%. To put it another way, reducing customer defection rates by just 5% could increase profitability by 25% to 130%, depending on the industry.

According to the U.S. Chamber

of Commerce and the U.S. Small Business Administration: •

•

•

The average business in the U.S. loses around 50% of its customer base every five years.

Companies are four times more likely to do business with an existing customer than a new customer.

The likelihood of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%, whereas it’s just 5-20% for a new customer.

Successful retention starts with the initial contact a business makes with a customer, and continues throughout the lifetime of the relationship. Bain Capital has even estimated that for certain industries, a 10% increase in customer retention is roughly equivalent to a 30% increase in a company’s value.

5. COMMUNITY A business ecosystem is an economic community of organizations and individuals that interact in countless ways.

These ecosystems encourage companies to evolve their capabilities competitively.

Sometimes an ecosystem can sprout up around a product, like the range of cases, headphones, and other paraphernalia for mobile devices.

Similarly, ecosystem thinking has become a cornerstone of web publishing–a broad swath of unpaid

contributors create content for popular outlets in exchange for growing their own readerships and developing personal brands.

Ecosystems are crucial to sustainable growth because they provide the structure that surrounds and supports the businesses within them. They spread “stakeholdership” out from the business and into society, like it did for my grandmother with her farming community.

6. REPEATABLE SALES Creating a unique product and brand isn’t enough. It takes repeatable sales processes to create a scalable business. It’s one thing to sign up a few customers; it’s another thing to design and implement sales processes that can be successfully deployed again and again at ever greater scale.

You’ve created a scalable sales model when: •

• • •

You can add new hires at the same productivity level as the entrepreneur or the sales leader.

You can increase the sources of your customer leads on a consistent basis.

You have a sales conversion rate and revenue that can be consistently forecast.

The cost to acquire a new customer is significantly less than the amount you can earn from that customer over

•

time.

Customers get the right products in the right place at the right time.

A repeatable sales model builds the platform to scale. But it can take a lot of experimentation and intensive research before you hit on one that’s truly sustainable.

7.

FLEXIBLE, LEADERSHIP

ADAPTIVE

To continue growing, entrepreneurs, managers, and business owners must become the leader the business needs for each particular stage of growth.

And since a company’s needs change at each stage, its leaders need to keep evolving at the right pace. That requires introspection, self-awareness, and a keen sense of strategy–both in the short and long term.

I believe that an adaptive, flexible leadership style comes from being mindful. Our individual, interpersonal, and working lives are all interconnected. By being mindful, we understand those relationships and how best to utilize them to create, innovate, and lead. 

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MARKETING

How to Write a Strong SEO Google Will Love/

By RUTH ESCHENHEIMER

Title Tag that Reading this, you probably know how to create a website. Once you’ve got that skill in the bag, the next step is to learn how to nourish it with some TLC. Like all great pairs in history (Romeo & Juliet, peanut butter & jelly, etc.), your website too has a significant other it needs to take into consideration: Search Engine Optimization. Indeed, if you’re a small business owner or blogger, it’s crucial that you improve your ranking in online results. That’s how most of the Internet people will arrive on your pages.

Ever heard of ‘googling’ something? We thought so.

Just like a great cocktail, a strong SEO is the combination of many ingredients. In this post, we’re going to focus on just one of them, and it’s one of the most important according to Google’s guidelines: the SEO title tag. You may have encountered it under many aliases: SEO title, meta title, page title or the most commonly used – title tag. In simple terms, this is the title given to each of your pages. In the same way, the title of a book or film attracts the most attention, your title tag is the first thing that users see on a results page.

In addition, it’s what search engines, like Google and Bing, initially see when crawling your site. But just filling in your title tag isn’t enough. You need to make sure that it’s clear, descriptive and eyecatching.

Don’t you worry, we’ll show you exactly how it’s done. So hold onto your hats, as we delve deeper into the what, why and

how to write a winning title tag for your website’s pages.

01. What is a title tag?

A title tag is technically a piece of HTML code used to tell search engines what’s the ‘name’ of your page Because it’s the first thing that they see, the title tag is a very strong signal for search bots to understand what the page is all about. The title tag is part of the metadata, along with the meta description of the page. Both elements are invisible to visitors when visiting your website. However, they will show up on search engine results pages (SERP): the blue line is the meta title or title, and the short blurb of black text is the meta description.

Important note: Your title tag is not to be confused with your page’s H1-tag. Heading tags (from H1 to H6) are the “SEO terms” for the titles and headlines that you put in your copy, and that are thus visible to the visitors of your website. For example, you would use an H1 as the article title of a blog post, or as the main title on a page (e.g. ‘Welcome on My Website!, ‘Our Products’ or ‘Contact Me’ ). Unlike title tags, heading tags don’t have a major importance for your SEO. 02. Why are title tags important?

Oh, but what’s in a name? A lot, actually, if you’re asking Google. There are three main reasons why your title tag matters: Ranking signal It’s known that there are over 200 signals that make up Google’s algorithms for ranking websites in search results. Your onpage SEO, meaning everything that you can do within the structure of your pages for them to rank higher (as opposed to what you can do ‘outside’, such as getting

backlinks or writing blog posts), is one of the strongest signals out there. And we’ll let you in on another secret: your title tag is considered to be the ‘big cheese’ of onpage optimization.

Search engine results As we’ve mentioned, your title appears in search engine results. It’s the most apparent text in a search result and plays a big role in whether someone will click on a result or not. Your goal is to attract as many clicks to get more traffic to your website. Thus, another super important reason to optimize your title tag.

Social media & web browsers Aside from being shown in search results, there are two extra locations where your title tag can be seen. One of them is when your link is shared on social media. And the other is by hovering over your browser’s tab. Surely, you want to make sure you and your business look good on a user’s browser tab and on social networks too. (That’s what Facebook is for, right?).

03. Where to find the title tag?

Inserting your title into your Wix website is a breeze.

This is how you do it in your website’s pages: Click the ‘Pages Menu’ from the top bar of the Editor.

Click the relevant page.

Click the ‘Show More’ icon.

Click ‘Page SEO’.

Enter your title tag under ‘What’s the page’s title on search engines?’.

This is how you do it for your blog posts:

Open the blog post editor.

Click ‘Advanced’ button on the bottom right.

Enter your ‘Meta Title’ 04. How to write a good title tag?

We’ve arrived at the juicy part: how to win over the hearts of the Internet people and make search engines happy. So, let’s get to it. Here are 7 tips to make sure you are writing the best SEO title tag possible: Do your research In order to write the best title tag, you need to find the best words. In SEO lingo, we call these ‘keywords’. These are two to fiveword phrases that a person would type into

It’s known that there are over 200 signals that make up Google’s algorithms for ranking websites in search results. Your on-page SEO, meaning everything that you can do within the structure...

a search box to look for you or a business like yours. A great way to find the right keywords is to think like your client. Let’s say that Jessica is a private yoga instructor in New York. A prospective customer would probably type ‘private yoga classes NYC’ or ‘yoga instructor’ to find her. That’s why it’s good to start by brainstorming and listing all of those terms down. Then, edit your list according to what is most accurate and what people are actually searching for. There are tools you can use to help you check keyword popularity and strength. For this, we recommend that you read this post for more advice on how to find the best keywords. Or, simply use Wix’s own SEO

tool: Wix SEO Wiz to analyze your keywords strength. Trust us, the Wiz will make sure you’re on the SEO path to title greatness.

Put keywords first Once you have your keywords, you need to carefully place them in a natural way.

Kind of like humans, bots tend to read from left-to-right. So, inserting your keywords at the start of your title tag will enable search engines to crawl those words faster. And the quicker they understand the content of your page, the better. This means that the chances of your page being shown for your keywords is higher. Score!

Apply the best format The main items to include in the title tag of your site’s main pages are: your business name or site name, a keyword, and if you work in a specific area, it’s a best practice to add the precise location. The process is different for blog articles, where you would optimally add a keyword and a catchy title to intrigue searchers (more on that in a bit).

For a non-blog post page, consider adding vertical bars to make your title easy to read and visually appealing: Keyword or Page Name | Location (Optional) | Business Name Let’s look at an example: Private Yoga Classes | New York City | Jessica’s Yoga Studio Write for humans Yes, we just told you to put your keywords in your title to please search engines. But don’t forget your most important audience – your visitors. Just like your milk to cereal ratio, you need to find the right balance when inserting your keywords. I’m not sure how good it would look if you wrote ‘Yoga Classes | Yoga Private Course | Yoga Instructor’, as a title. Overloading your title tags with keywords will dissuade people from clicking on your page. If you have additional keywords you’d like to use, then your meta description is the best place to add them. It’s all about compromise.

spaces. One way to reduce your title’s length is to remove all ‘stop words’ such as, ‘the’, ‘to’, ‘in’, etc. Remember, every character counts.

Have a look at tools such as SEOmofo to check if your title is at optimal length.

Write unique titles If you had a chance to check out these 7 SEO sins, then you know that duplicate content is a big no-no. This applies to your titles well. If all of your title tags are the same, search engine bots may get confused and won’t know how to rank your pages. That’s why you absolutely must write unique titles for each of your pages. Hopefully, you’ve understood by now, a title can really make or break your website’s SEO. Make it attractive Like all things on your Wix website, you want to make it stunning. We’ve already mentioned the format but we want to give you some more tips on how to beautify your title. For pages, make sure it’s aesthetically pleasing by using capital letters where necessary and watch out for typos. Nobody likes clumsiness. As for blog post titles, you want to make your titles are as catchy and clickable as possible. You can do this by adding adjectives and numbers to captivate readers. Check out this research about most shared blog titles to get inspired. When writing both types of page titles, it’s a good idea to add your brand name at the end.

This will help you look like a boss on the SERP. 

Check your title length Google and Co. give you a limited amount of space to display your title. While title limits on Wix sites are 70 characters, we recommend that you keep your meta title between 55 – 60 characters, including

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